


More Than This

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ableism, Ambiguous Relationships, Amnesiac Mollymauk, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Death, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Familiars, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Lobotomy, Mental Breakdown, Mental Disintegration, Mental Instability, Mind Meld, Mind Rape, Muteness, Nonverbal Communication, POV Multiple, Possibly Pre-Slash, Romantic Friendship, Self-Sacrifice, Sort Of, Takes place in some nebulous future after Episode 14, Team as Family, protective nott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: The Empire got a lot more unfriendly towards “unauthorized” mages, after the attack.Molly hadn’t even been aware that “unauthorized” mages were a thing beforehand, but suddenly they were. That was just the way things worked in the Empire, now more than ever, and it was one more thing The Mighty Nein had to roll with.(Or, post Episode 12, the Mighty Nein get in trouble with the law by virtue of being a group containing a goblin, two tieflings, and a couple of mages. Caleb pulls off some heroics to let them get away, and by the time they find him again he's been hit with the Feeblemind spell as punishment. Rather fumbling attempts at coping ensue while the rest of the group tries to fix things.)





	1. Luck runs out

**Author's Note:**

> I think I wanted to say something when I started this fic, but this fic turned out to be 15k words and I can't remember what that thing is anymore.
> 
> Basically I came across the Feeblemind spell while I was browsing Roll20 and thought to myself "wow, that would be a messed up thing to have to live through" and, because I am me, that thought progressed to "wow, that would be a terrible thing to have happen to Caleb." Plus I am just generally a huge fan of "team comes together to help out a wounded friend" stories, so all in all this was pretty fun to write and I hope you all enjoy reading it.

The Empire got a lot more unfriendly towards “unauthorized” mages, after the attack.

Molly hadn’t even been aware that “unauthorized” mages were a thing beforehand, but suddenly they were. He didn’t know where that left the poor bastards who’d been trying to get into Solstrice Academy and _get_ authorized before important buildings started blowing up, and no one in charge seemed to feel it worth explanation. That was just the way things worked in the Empire, now more than ever, and it was one more thing The Mighty Nein had to roll with.

Until one day they couldn’t. Until one day they found themselves too far north and suddenly no one was willing to look the other way anymore. Not towards tieflings, not towards goblins, not towards unauthorized mages.

They’d just been trying to stay somewhere out of the snow for the night. Despite the fact that they were on the outskirts of one of the largest cities on the road since Zadash, they’d unilaterally agreed to sleep in a barn instead. Okay, they hadn’t actually asked permission from the owners to sleep there, but it was a big barn, and they’d planned to be out of there before sunrise, snow or no snow.

They’d been found out, somehow. Maybe someone had been following them, maybe someone from the family had gotten an inconvenient bout of insomnia and gone for a late night walk. Either way, it resulted in Caleb’s alarm spell being tripped by what must have been a solid twenty Crownsguard surrounding the building in tandem.

It was not an easy fight. The soldiers had crossbows. Caleb had fire, but that really only served to make things worse in the end. There were a great many flammable things in the average barn, after all.

So the end result was this – the building was on fire, one of the beams that had burned through had fallen across Molly’s legs and cracked Nott hard across the skull. He could see blood drying on her face, but he couldn’t see where the rest of the group had fallen. He could just see where the last one standing was, and it just so happened to be Caleb. He stood in the center of a ring of fire and steel, only just barely managing to keep the guards from skewering him by adding in more fire. Even so, Molly saw two of the survivors raising their crossbows. He was just lifting his sword to slice into his neck and damn their eyes when Caleb called out: “ _Wait!”_

His voice echoed throughout the barn, louder than Molly had ever heard it, maybe even loud enough that the family no doubt cowering back in the farmhouse heard it. It did nothing to settle the nerves of Caleb’s opponents – but it did make them pause, and gave him an opportunity the wizard seized. “I wish to speak to your captain!” he continued, his voice magically reverberating. “I have a deal to make with him! No one else has to suffer, or burn, or die!”

A few glances were exchanged, with some casting anxious looks between Caleb and the flames licking higher up the walls. Finally, a guard dressed a bit nicer than the others stepped forward. “This should be good,” Molly heard him say. “State your intentions.”

Caleb started to slowly move a hand towards his face. It wasn’t slow enough, however – with an ugly _twang_ , a crossbow bolt sprouted out of his shoulder. The wizard cried out, clutching the wound and slumping further where he stood. The guard standing next to the one with the twitchy finger, the one who still had a bolt loaded, suddenly started screaming, as black bile began to pool in his eyes and ooze down his cheeks like hell’s own tears. Molly didn’t even wince at the momentary bite of pain across his neck, one more scar to join the many.

Caleb reacted quickly, as Molly had known he would. He pointed at the screaming man as if it were his own handiwork. “You see?!” he boomed. “I have more than fire! You will probably kill me, yes, just like you slaughtered all my servants. But how many of you will have equally terrible deaths? Better you hear the terms of my surrender, _ja?_ Then we all leave with our necks. This is your _one chance_ and your _final warning_!”

Perhaps it was only a trick of the light to begin with, but the Crownsguard probably didn’t notice how Caleb’s hands were shaking. But neither did they stop him as he lifted a hand to his face again and smudged…something under each eye.

It felt like the world was holding its breath for an instant…and then the captain lowered his sword, just an inch. “Those…things. You summoned them here?”

“Yes.” Caleb let the volume of his voice fade to something less  resounding, now just loud enough to be heard over the flames. “That little green monster, those two demons, that orc brute. The roads are dangerous for a man like myself, as you have just proven. I made help for myself.”

Molly managed to bite his lip at just the last possible second to keep from making any noise, as he felt the broken wooden beam being slowly shifted off of him. He looked back, moving his head as little as he dared, to see Beau crouching behind him. The monk was backlit by flames, but he could make out Fjord draped over her back, Jester being dragged under one arm. She held a finger to her lips, nodded at Nott, then jerked her head towards the nearest wall.

He heard the captain scoff. “This is exactly the sort of activity the Empire is attempting to regulate in light of the attack. One unknown man cannot have such uncontrolled power over the very forces of hell, the very forces our soldiers fight against.”

“My name is Caleb,” Caleb said. “You know me now.”

There was a hole in the wall where Beau was indicating. It wasn’t much – Molly guessed she’d ripped it open herself. But it was enough for them to squeeze through, and on the other side was open fields and open sky and _a chance_.

Beau, seeing that he understood, started to move herself and her burdens over towards it. Molly carefully gathered up Nott and followed at a half crouch. They were screened by rubble and flames, but if someone looked over at the wrong moment, if someone saw…

“You do seem a…remarkably reasonable man.”

“So I am often told. I am sorry, after the attack…it is so hard to keep track of what is rumor and what is truth. Perhaps you could take me back to the offices of the Lawmaster and we could work to resolve this mess properly.”

Beau had to push Jester through, clamber out herself, then drag Fjord outside. Molly had to remind himself to breathe. At least here, low to the ground, the smoke wasn’t so bad.

He passed Nott out to her, then started to squeeze himself through.

“Perhaps that can be arranged. I feel we’ve made our point, there need be no further loss of life tonight, you…you _bastard!”_

Molly heard it when the spell ended. He heard it in the sudden rush of fury in the captain’s voice, he heard it in the sharp _smack_ of a backhand and Caleb’s grunt of pain. Molly looked back as he stumbled through the gap, and through the flames he saw Caleb’s silhouette slump to his knees, saw the one who must have been the captain looming over him as another faceless guard passed over what looked like heavy shackles.

Mollymauk Tealeaf made a decision, then. It was one he would come to regret for a very, very long time.

He turned away, and followed Beau at a sprint into a distant copse of dead apple trees. He paused just long enough to set Nott down near where she’d left Fjord and Jester, then turned and chased after Beau with all the strength he had left in his limbs. When it seemed even that wouldn’t be enough to catch her before she made it back to the barn, Molly cursed in Common then barked in Infernal: _“Your bones will lie fallow and forgotten!”_

Beau cried out in pain, clutching at her head and stumbling. Molly caught up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to dig in his heels. His vision exploded into stars for a moment as she drove her elbow back into his eye, but by some miracle he managed to keep his grip.

“Let _go_ of me, what the _fuck_ …”

“Hey hey hey stop _stop_. I saw them pulling out shackles. You don’t _shackle_ someone you plan to execute on the spot. We have _time_ we can do this _right_ we can do something _besides_ running back in there to die…”

She clipped his temple with her other elbow, but that was probably just on principle. After that, grumbling and cursing him all the while, Beau nevertheless slowly stopped struggling. Molly didn’t think to release his grip right away – instead, he held her as they stood together and watched the distant barn in flames, watched as a line of shadows hurried out of it, helping those who stumbled and dragging those who resisted. At this distance, it was impossible to tell which was which.

“How long do you think we have?” Beau whispered.

Molly had no idea. “Long enough,” he said. “To wake those three chuckleheads up, figure out where we’re going, execute one of our classic dramatic rescues. It’ll be all right, Beau.” He knew better than to give her even a friendly kiss, but he squeezed her a little tighter instead and hoped she recognized the half-hug for what it was. In case she didn’t, he promptly let go and hurried back towards the trees. “Come on.”

He was brought up short by a soft, plaintive meow. He and Beau looked to their right to see a tattered ginger tail winding its way towards them through the tall grass. Molly laughed in relief and delight, before reaching down to pick up the cat. “There, see? Our first stroke of luck. Soon as Caleb figures out where he is, he can use this little guy to lead us right to him.”

It didn’t take long for Beau to dig out the healing potions Jester kept in her haversack. It didn’t take long for the two of them to dump those potions down the throats of the unconscious, or for the unconscious to wake. It felt like it took a minor eternity to explain what had happened, with shame and fear squirming for position in his stomach like stubborn snakes. The most difficult part of the entire affair was forcibly stopping Nott from racing off to try and rescue Caleb right then and there.

But from there, they settled down to lick their wounds and make a plan. Halfway through their efforts, Frumpkin suddenly sat up straight, chirped at nothing, then raced off back towards the city. Not without some collective hesitation, they let him go and trusted that he’d be back.

When the cat did return, it was just as the sky was starting to lighten. The air was growing colder, which honestly felt a little bracing after so long in the fire, and on the wind was the scent of imminent snow. When the cat did return, it was in such a state of agitation and distress that there was no possible chance of delaying any longer. The remainder of the Mighty Nein hastily gathered what they could and raced off after Frumpkin, praying they weren’t too late.

*  *  *

They found Caleb wandering aimlessly in the snow on the edge of the city.

Molly could scarcely believe the sight, but there he was – ginger and gaunt and disheveled as ever, there was Caleb wandering aimlessly in the snow. Nott didn’t give any of them any longer than that to wonder if they were seeing things. “Caleb!” she called, racing towards him, with Frumpkin hot on her heels. The little goblin collided with her friend at top speed to hug him tight, and Caleb stumbled so that they both wound up sprawled in the snow.

Nott seemed to barely have time to catch her breath, though, before Caleb was shoving her forcibly away, struggling and squirming to escape her grip, and by then Molly was close enough to see the expression of confusion and hurt in her eyes as she let him go. Caleb stumbled to his feet, staggered away, looking first at her and then at the rest of the group standing an anxious few feet away. Molly saw panic on his face, confusion, fear, and then…

...and then recognition dawned, and he smiled at them all. It was the most un-Caleb-like expression Molly had ever seen. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Caleb smile and mean it at all. Usually it was something he reserved for books, or Frumpkin, or Nott. Maybe Molly had sometimes fantasized about that changing, of course, but...not like this, never like this, when everything was so _wrong_ even if he had no idea how or why.

It was Jester who noticed first. Molly realized too late that he’d been so busy being disquieted by that smile that he hadn’t thought to look at the rest of Caleb’s face. “Oh my god,” she breathed, around the hands now covering her mouth.

Fjord noticed next. “What the _fuck…_?” he whispered, taking a hesitant step closer.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Beau said quietly. “I’m gonna kill someone and then I’m gonna be sick.”

Molly lifted his gaze just a few inches.

Someone, with an evident lack of care, had lopped off most of Caleb’s bangs, leaving just choppy orange fringe remaining. All for the sake of having better access to his forehead, where someone – someone who really was going to die _very soon_ – had left an ugly, official-looking brand.

“Caleb…?” Nott whimpered. Molly saw by the tears in her eyes that she’d noticed it, too. She hugged him again, much more carefully this time, and this time he was obviously happy to let her even if he seemed at a loss about what to do in response. Molly watched him touch her head, her shoulder, until he seemed to remember what a hug _was_ and hesitantly gave the goblin one in turn. “Are you all right?”

“Why isn’t he saying anything?” Beau whispered, not taking her eyes off the two of them.

“Maybe he can’t hear?” Fjord ventured.

“Maybe he can’t speak,” Molly murmured.

“M-Maybe he’s just being grumpy that we took so long to rescue him!” Jester was _trying_ , bless her heart, to keep a lightness to her tone, but it had never been more obvious that she didn’t believe a word she was saying. Molly watched her skip over to Caleb and tug on his sleeve, speaking in a sing-song tone that sounded as firm as spun glass. “Caleb! We’re really, really sorry we took so long to come and get you and you had to bust your own way out. We just didn’t realize how impressive and strong you are now, or we would have just waited for you on the other side of the wall you burned down!”

Caleb looked at her, and...stayed silent. He still looked happy to see her, was still smiling in that unnervingly open and genuine way, but as she spoke that smile faltered and he tilted his head and just...stared at her, with utterly no hint of understanding in his eyes. Jester’s attempt at optimism flagged visibly as the seconds ticked by, and she cast a pleading gaze to Fjord for help.

“Caleb!” the half-orc called, as he went to join the growing huddle. The wizard looked over at him with barely a pause, then, which neatly resolved the issue of whether his captors had deafened him. He flinched a little bit when Fjord lightly punched his arm, but returned the gesture after a moment with a smile. “Glad you’re back with us.”

Caleb still seemed to be a little uncomfortable with the people suddenly surrounding him, which was the most relieving thing Molly had seen in the past five minutes. So he hung back, and saw out of the corner of his eye that Beau had chosen to do the same.

“So,” she whispered to him. “Guess you called it.”

“Seems I did,” Molly said, watching the other four. “At least...I hope that’s the extent of it.”

“Whatever else is going on, we should probably bail. Like, fast, and _now_. Catch up and hug it out in the woods.”

“First thing you’ve said that I agree with all day.” With that, Molly clapped his hands like a schoolmarm and strode forward. “All right! Caleb is back with us, only...slightly worse for wear, and we didn’t even have to burn anything to the ground to make it happen.”

He could hear the _yet_ reverberate throughout the reset of the Mighty Nein, unsaid but no less certain. And gods, Molly loved them all then. Really clicking with a group was the most wonderful feeling in the world, and he’d been afraid he might never experience that again after the circus fell apart.

“For now, I say we cut our losses, blow a kiss to Lady Luck, and take this little reunion somewhere more isolated while we figure out what the fuck to do next. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Fjord said. “Maybe we swing back south, until things cool off a bit.”

“Let’s not go making any plans just yet until we’ve all eaten.”

Jester tugged on Caleb’s sleeve again. “Let’s go, Caleb! We have a nice little camp in this really cool cave. There’s a river nearby! I bet even you want a bath now that you’re all covered in prison stink!”

The tension eased a little, at that, and they all chuckled a bit, all except Caleb but that was nothing out of the ordinary in and of itself. And old habits were such a powerful thing that when they all set off towards the woods, Molly didn’t realize right away that Caleb _hadn’t_ taken his usual favored position at the back again. He didn’t realize the full extent of what was wrong until he heard running footsteps approaching at speed before he was suddenly seized from behind in a tight, fierce, trembling hug.

The sound of Molly’s soft gasp of surprise made the others stop and look back. Molly didn’t even have to look down at the arms clasped tight around his stomach to know who had jumped him. He just turned, very careful not to break Caleb’s grip, until he could look the other man in his wide, frightened blue eyes.

This, at least, was a little familiar, though Molly knew that a slap probably wouldn’t shake Caleb out of anything now. He skipped right to the forehead kiss instead, before trying to make his voice low and gentle. “Hey,” he murmured, running a hand through Caleb’s matted hair. “Hey, c’mon, why’re you being ridiculous, hm? You act like we were just about to march off and have a party without you. Of course we’re not about to leave you behind, you’re...”

 _You’re our wizard_ , he could have said. _You’re our friend_ , he should have said. But Molly watched Caleb’s eyes as he spoke, and in the end he trailed off with a sigh.

“You can’t understand a word I’m saying, can you?” he said, before kissing Caleb’s cheek as though that could soften the blow. It seemed to help ease the other man’s fears, at least. It got a reaction out of him besides distressed confusion, which was more than anything any of them had said so far had done.

Molly heard the others gasp and murmur to themselves as they heard what he said, as they realized that – in defiance of all logic, reason, and goodness – he really did seem to have it right. They probably wanted explanations. Molly didn’t know how to give them any. Evil as this curse or enchantment or whatever was, it still wasn’t his kind of magic.

One thing he did know how to do, however, was get them moving again. He took Caleb’s hand, lead him over to a Nott who was barely keeping it under control herself, and linked their hands together with some ceremony.

“Make sure he doesn’t get lost, okay?” Molly said, patting her on the head. Nott swallowed, scrubbed fiercely at her eyes with her free hand, and nodded. Molly then looked to Caleb and patted his other cheek. “We’ll be there soon.”


	2. Days go by

They all made their own attempts to reach Caleb, all tried their own ideas, but in the end they came to basically the same conclusion about his condition.

Caleb could not speak. Caleb could not understand what they were saying when they spoke to him. He reacted to the sound of his own name, but maybe that was just because he could remember that these were the sounds most often associated with him. Beyond that, any grasp of language seemed to be stripped from him entirely.

As far as they could tell, his memories seemed to have been untouched. He recognized them, after all, knew them to be his friends. Furthermore, when Fjord conjured up a small silent image of a manticore in his palm, Caleb immediately scooted a foot away and hid his face.

Similarly, Caleb seemed to know that he should be able to cast spells. Nott even tried to help walk him through the steps of setting an alarm or conjuring up a chromatic orb – but, much like language, he seemed fundamentally unable to grasp the idea anymore. His fingers were clumsy, the arcane chants wouldn’t come to his lips. It frustrated him more visibly than anything else had, and that upset Nott, and finally Molly made himself step in and put an end to the experiments for the evening.

But it was impossible not to notice other details, such as the way the wizard tried to bite into one of the rabbit carcasses Nott brought back before Beau had even skinned it, and growled softly when it was taken away. Whatever had been done to him in that prison had badly damaged his mind and damn near shattered his personality. Only fragments remained, like the way he kept Frumpkin draped like a scarf around his shoulders. Otherwise, he seemed to act mostly on base instinct and whatever he could still process of his memories. He was otherwise so visibly open and emotional because there just wasn’t enough left of him to build his walls back up, and it broke Molly’s heart to see.

The rest of the Mighty Nein were thankfully able to follow Molly’s lead and keep talking like nothing was wrong for a while, making plans about where to go from here. Eventually, Caleb curled up and went to sleep, surrendering to obvious exhaustion, and by unspoken agreement wound up covered with everyone’s capes and cloaks not long after that.

“Do you think it’s the brand?” Beau asked, as they all resettled themselves around their little campfire. “That’s doing this to him?”

Molly sucked in a breath. That sounded nasty, and therefore quite possible. Even so: “Hope not. Don’t fancy trying to get rid of it when we couldn’t even tell him what we’re doing. Jester, Nott, think you have a prayer of dispelling this?”

“I will try!” Jester said, looking as stubborn as Molly had ever seen her.

“I think I can see if it’s magic,” Nott said, staring down at her hands as she twisted them in her lap. “The, the brand, I mean. Oh, I haven’t really used this spell before, I’ve always left it to Caleb, but...”

“But you’re smart, and you’re getting pretty good at magic, too,” Fjord said, cutting her off. “We trust you, Nott. You can do this.”

Nott gulped, gulped again, and then nodded. She carefully scooched herself over to where Caleb was sleeping. Frumpkin, as if sensing her concern, hopping up into the girl’s lap and kneaded himself comfortable. Bolstered by the tacit approval of one of the most important parts of Caleb, Nott held out her hands, carved a few arcane sigils in the air, and murmured under her breath.

Nothing very visible happened, but after a moment, Nott’s expression twisted up in something like grief. “Oh, oh I see it…I don’t think it’s the brand, that’s not glowing…he is, it’s, it’s all around his head, like black string, or, or maybe a web. Some sort of…enchantment? And…” Her fingers started to shake. “It’s the s-strongest magic I’ve ever seen! Stronger than anything Caleb knew, probably stronger than you, Jester. Oh no, oh no, I don’t know if we can f-fix this. I know I’m not strong enough…”

Nott ducked her head, fisting her hands in her hair and shaking her head fiercely, until Frumpkin butted his head against her chin and mewled. Then the goblin just hugged the cat to her chest and muffled a sob in his fur.

Jester, looking stubborn, moved to sit up next to Nott. She reached out to rest one hand against the side of Caleb’s face, took up her holy symbol in the other hand, and closed her eyes.

Molly could see the look of effort come over her face immediately. She muttered a prayer in Infernal, yet spoke too quickly even for him to really understand what she was saying. Sweat beaded on her forehead, a crease deepened between her eyes. Then at last, a moment came when she was apparently so focused on the spell that she stopped breathing all together…until, like a woman surfacing from deep water, Jester jerked and let out an enormous gasp, falling backwards onto her hands and staring up at the cave ceiling as she panted for breath.

“I almost…I almost had it,” she rasped, wiping some sweat from her forehead. “I could see it. Just like Nott said. A dark black web all around his head. I tried to get a hold of it but it just kept fighting me!” Fjord held out his canteen. Jester took it with a nod of thanks and drained it in three gulps. “I will try again, tomorrow. I know what I am looking at now. I can fix this tomorrow.” She mustered up a smile for them all. “You have nothing to worry about!”

Fjord and Nott looked a little reassured, as one by one they all drifted off for the night. Molly wished that Beau wasn’t the last one besides him to stay awake, but it seemed that nothing was destined to go his way tonight. At least that meant he had someone else to stay with him on watch. He wasn’t feeling especially attentive, after all.

“You know,” Beau said, speaking for the first time in an hour and without opening her eyes. She was going through some forms or another, some sort of exercises that seemed as meditative to her as praying over his scimitars was to Molly. “If the brand’s not magic…that means someone did it just because. You get that, right? Whoever did this broke him inside and _then_ they decided to brand him for no reason. Just because they could.”

Molly broke another twig in half and tossed it into the dying fire. “Oh, I can think of a few reasons. Telling the people of the Empire which beggars they shouldn’t help, maybe. Or, gods willing, a more permanent reminder for him if this magic turns out to be temporary.”

Beau made a frustrated sound and put both her feet back on the ground. “I don’t _want_ him to have a permanent reminder of anything! What the hell would it be _for_ , anyway? So he doesn’t forget that people are assholes?” She drove her fist into the cave wall hard enough to leave cracks, “I knew he knew that from the second I first laid eyes on him.”

“I know,” Molly said quietly, staring into the smoldering embers. “Me too.” Dour thoughts and bad memories swirled around his mind, like a net keeping him still and silent, until Beau broke the spell by flopping down on the other side of the fire with a loud sigh.

“You really think this could be temporary?” she asked.

“I can’t imagine we wouldn’t have heard about this happening before if it wasn’t. Mindless wizards wandering around the countryside. Seems like the kind of news that gets around.”

“Maybe they just don’t live long enough for the news to get around. Maybe the ones without friends just choke on rabbit bones and die in a ditch.”

“See, I was _trying_ to be optimistic.”

“Sorry.” And she even sort of sounded it, for once.

Molly had to take a second to get his breathing under control at the thoughts she’d put in his head. “Even if it _is_ permanent, I don’t think it’s irreversible. I don’t think magic works like that. Jester will try again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. If she can’t do it, we’ll…just have to find a cleric who can. Who will.”

“Who’ll stick their neck out for a guy that’s been branded by the Empire as bad news. Yeah,” Beau sighed, sounding tired down to the bone. “Easy.”

Molly broke another twig in half, and took a grim, petty satisfaction in the way the sound was loud enough to make Beau flinch. “I’m going to sleep,” he said. “You can stay awake and keep being grumpy and pessimistic all night for all I care.”

Beau frowned and made an indignant sound as Molly got up and turned his back…then, to his surprise, she sighed and softly called out: “Wait.”

He did, and looked back at her. Her face was in shadow, but she sounded as sincere as Beau ever did when she carried on hesitantly: “I’m…I’m sorry. I know I’m not…helping, right now. I know that. It’s driving me _nuts_. I want to _do_ something and I _can’t_. And it makes me angry, but…not at you.”

There were a lot of things he could have said to that. Instead, a rare moment of sympathy – or at least, rare where Beau was concerned - took hold of Mollymauk then. So all he said instead was: “Apology accepted.” Then he offered her a jaunty salute, and walked over to his bedroll to go to sleep.

Beau kept watch all night.

*  *  *

 _You are more than this,_ said the cat. They were the only words that ever made sense.

 _I am more than this_ , he said back. He did not know why he said it. It was the only thing he could say. He could only say it with the cat’s help. Not with his mouth, with his head.

He knew he had been more than this. He remembered fire from his hands, a new face, balls of light. He could not do any of that now. It made him angry. It made them sad. They were his friends. He could help them once, but not now.

Sometimes when he shut his eyes and opened them again, he was the cat. That was better than being him. The cat was quick and smart. The cat could kill food. It did when he told it to. It was small food, but more than he could kill alone. He told the cat to share the food with his friends – the tall green one, the purple one, the blue one, the little green one, and the one who was none of these things.

The little green one liked them most. He and her would sit side by side next to the fire and eat small dead things. She would smile and look happy. One time she tried to show him how he could also kill food. She gave him sharp things to help. It did not work. He was not like the cat. He was big and slow and not smart. She still let him keep the sharp things after.

He and his friends were going somewhere. They walked when it was light out and slept when it was dark. Sometimes he got tired and tried to sleep when it was light. His friends always made him stop.

He did not know where they were going. But he knew that it was where his friends were going and so he was, too. He walked with them, he tried to feed them, he watched over them, and he loved them so much.

And he hoped so much that he would not be left behind again. Sometimes it seemed like he would be. Sometimes they looked through him and stopped seeing him. In those moments he was so scared of being left behind again. His last memory before things went wrong was of being alone. He did not want it to happen again.

But those fears did not last long. They always saw him again soon. They remembered he was there before long. They smiled and spoke to him even if he did not know the words. It was still enough to make him feel better.

 _You are more than this_ , the cat said to him every night as it sat on his chest and looked down at him

 _I am more than this_ , he said, and touched its fur the way the purple one sometimes touched his.

*  *  *

Jester kept trying every day she could. Every day when they didn’t run into other troubles, she held back one spell so she could try and get a hold on whatever enchantment had a hold on Caleb. Days went by, and her efforts were for nothing. No one said anything out loud, but no one needed to. Silently, the Mighty Nein’s priorities collectively shifted to finding a stronger cleric.

Fortunately, they didn’t often run into any other troubles – bandits, brigands, bounty hunters, but the seven of them were more than that now. They’d seen too much to be scared by the pettiness and greed of ordinary humans now. Even without Caleb’s alarm spells, they didn’t get taken off guard. They didn’t have Caleb around to throw fire, but Fjord and Nott picked up the slack.

Actually traveling with Caleb in his current state required some getting used to. Nott took charge of reteaching him simple tasks and necessities. She needed two days to impart some basic lessons to Caleb on how to take care of himself, and she was trying to teach him how to hunt by day four. It didn’t work, but she let him keep the little dagger.

Molly reflected to himself that maybe he should have given her statement of being the parent to Caleb a little more credence at the time. But admitting as much was still a bit more humility than he was willing to show, especially when everything was already so strange.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Fjord asked her later, as Nott sharpened the blade on Caleb’s behalf.

“He knows which end is the pointy one,” Nott said, frowning down at her work. “He knows who the bad people are. I think he can figure out that bringing one into conjunction with the other might help keep him safe.”

Other things that took some getting used to weren’t unpleasant in and of themselves – just very, very odd by comparison. Caleb was far more openly physical now than Molly had ever seen him or dreamed he could be before. Logically, that made sense – it was his only way to communicate with them or really understand them right now. But it still took them all aback, the way Caleb would so freely grab Beau’s hand to keep from being left behind or tug on Fjord’s arm to get his attention or sit with Nott in his lap like she was just a bigger Frumpkin.

It was as if he could sense that Molly was the most comfortable with such things, however – that for Molly, it was as much a matter of _want_ as _need_. Suddenly, Molly could communicate with Caleb better than anyone besides possibly Nott or his cat. And gods above and below, that gave Molly mixed feelings. Even in his damaged state, Caleb was a fast learner, watching them and mimicking them for the sake of just keeping up.

Which meant it probably shouldn’t have surprised Molly when one day Caleb thanked him for something with a kiss on the cheek, but it _did_ , and for a moment he Molly was left a stammering, uncertain mess. The only thing that kept him from ducking out on the spot was the rather anxious expression on the wizard’s face, which drove Molly to kiss his forehead in reassurance and yes, maybe a bit of appreciation.

Because it wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about this, sometimes – hadn’t harbored silly, romantic, but fun thoughts of maybe finding out how to bring Caleb out of his shell one day and help him relax enough to see that affection didn’t have to be a last resort or a punishment. Molly felt very definite about the fact that you couldn’t work in the circus if you didn’t have at least a little streak of romance in your soul, otherwise you’d never reach your audience. He wasn’t ashamed of that part of him. And it was fun and nice to imagine being Caleb’s knight in shining armor, even if the times where he’d actually put himself in that position had been rather terrifying to say the least. There was just something about the man that invited the impulse, however – that made you want to shield him and keep him safe and put him back together.

The fact that Caleb was such an awkward _grump_ about it sometimes only made it more fun. Molly had never been one to mind a challenge.

So there were times when he’d let himself imagine that a night could come like this one, a night where Caleb would settle down with his head in Molly’s lap and let the tiefling stroke his hair until he fell asleep. Yet Molly did it with such a rotten tangle of conflicting emotions in his chest that it hurt. He hadn’t wanted any of that to happen like this, never like this.

Even so, it made Caleb happy and he was selfishly glad to see that here was something concrete he could do to help his friend settle and relax in such a state, even if it was never anything Caleb would invite if he were in his right mind, even if things would go right back to the way they’d been when Caleb got better and that was as it should be.

There were more openly positive developments they discovered over the days that followed, at least. Discovering that Caleb was still capable of riding around in Frumpkin’s head was a surprise, but one that gave Molly further cause for hope – especially when Caleb started using the cat to bring them dead mice, rats, and birds. Or at least, he was pretty sure it was Caleb’s initiative. Frumpkin was a nice enough cat-spirit- _thing_ , but Molly somehow doubted that a wizard’s familiar would make the spontaneous decision all on its own to start feeding six other humanoids.

No one was quite sure what to _do_ with the meagre offerings of food, at first – except Nott, who would skin them deftly and eat them happily on the spot. It was Fjord’s idea to start collecting the results of Frumpkin’s hunting all together in a satchel on his belt and roast them on sticks in front of the campfire every night, to supplement their rations.

“It’s a little weird, but it’s still good meat,” he said, picking his teeth with a small rat bone. “You don’t waste good meat.” He spoke with a sailor’s certainty there, and really, Molly thought he could even come to prefer fresh mouse to dried beef.

Almost every night, Frumpkin sat on Caleb’s chest and stared at him, and Caleb stared back until he fell asleep. It almost seemed to Molly like they were still talking to each other, only telepathically. Maybe it was just something to do with being a wizard and his familiar, or maybe there was still a part of Caleb that was truly _himself_ somewhere in there, a part only Frumpkin knew how to sniff out.

Either way, it was better than nothing, and it kept Molly hoping.

Still, there were difficulties. There couldn’t not be. And not all of those difficulties came from Caleb. Molly tried to ignore it for as long as possible, but each and every mistake itched and him and tugged at bad memories he’d tried to set aside. So in the end, a week after they found Caleb wandering aimlessly in the snow, he set down his food with some ceremony and a deep breath to steady himself before addressing the rest of the group.

“You guys have _got_ to stop talking like Caleb isn’t here.”

The irony that this was exactly what Molly was doing did not escape him, but at least he’d waited for Caleb to be asleep first.

He looked up to see the rest of the group exchanging confused looks, seemingly torn between worry at the idea that they were doing something wrong and confusion over the idea that they _could_ be.

“I mean…weren’t you the one who first figured out that he can’t understand us?” Beau asked cautiously. “I know talking like people aren’t here is rude _normally_ , but…”

“Was there something we didn’t understand?” Jester asked worriedly.

And of course it was the genuine, open concern on her face that took the wind right out of his sails. Molly slumped a bit where he sat, all the energy he’d mustered rushing out of him – and it had taken some mental effort on his part to bring up even this much.

But they were his friends, and…he owed them more.

“Look, I…I don’t _think_ he can understand what we’re saying. But I don’t _know_. None of us _know_ exactly what’s going on here. But even if he doesn’t, he knows when we’re talking _to_ him and when we’re talking _over_ him. And, I don’t know, it just…seems like it makes him feel better, when we do the former. At least from where I’m standing.” Molly shrugged, finding himself suddenly, painfully aware that he was treading into dangerous waters that he might not be able to escape from in time.

It was Nott who came to his rescue. “He remembers everything now, so he might still remember all of this when we fix him.”

“Right! Exactly,” Molly said, so relieved that he had to fight not to laugh. “Look at this as saving yourselves a lecture and a round of hurt feelings later.”

“Lectures are the worst,” Beau agreed.

“Hurt feelings aren’t always that great, either,” Jester said, smiling fondly over at Caleb, before turning that smile on Molly. To his surprise, she then got to her feet and came over to kiss him on the top of his head. “So thank you for telling us this, Molly. I am happy you felt well enough to.”

“Yeah?” he stammered, running a hand over one horn in an anxious tell so obvious he knew he could never play cards with Jester again. “Well, y’know. Wasn’t any skin off my nose. Just sharing some observations. Happy to help anyway, though.”

She winked at him, before going to finish scrubbing the stewpot.

*  *  *

Nott surprised Molly on watch that night. One minute he was sitting there, staring at nothing and waiting for the moon to pass that tree there so he could go and wake up Fjord.

Then two tiny hands slid up his shoulders like snakes, and a tiny voice whispered “boo” right by his ear.

If his vehement swearing didn’t wake the entire camp, Nott’s cackling certainly should have. Molly settled back with some difficulty, took a moment to check that everything he’d had nearby was still there, and only then did he turn to look at the girl.

“Can I help you?”

Nott sat back on her heels and, just like that, her mirth was gone and only strange, somber curiosity remained.

“I only wanted to ask…I get curious, you know. I don’t just get the itch for stealing. So I wanted to ask…is the reason you’re being like this about Caleb because he reminds you of you, back when you couldn’t talk?”

Molly went cold. He could feel the shock and dread like ice down his spine, and hastily turned away from her before he gave more away. “How did you know about that?”

“Toya told me. When we were asking around about the Trostenwald Slayer. Told us, actually. Me and Jester. That’s why she was being like that about you.”

“Great,” Molly muttered bitterly. “That would have been nice to know about a month ago.” Not that he knew what he would have done if he had. Just, that…you were supposed to know that your secrets were still secrets. That was supposed to be only fair.

Nott was still looking at him, though, and a secret that was known to two was just about the most useless secret. So at last, Molly sighed and turned back to face her. “Yes, okay? Yeah, seeing him like this…I guess it brings back some memories.” He scratched along the ridges of one his horns, his gaze sliding away from her as his mind drifted back.

“Did people talk like you weren’t there all the time, too?”

“ _Oh_ , yes.” His chest tightened at the memories. “And I’m not saying _I_ could always understand what people were saying to me. Sometimes my head just went…fuzzy.” He gestured vaguely at his own forehead. “But mostly I could, and…and it fucks with you. Having people looking right past you and talking over your head like you’re a child, or worse.” He grimaced. “It’s bad enough, not being able to speak, not knowing why you can’t. Like everyone else is a part of something grand and you’re out in the cold.”

He was glad that his words were at least getting Nott to think. She was staring down at her hands, now, where she fidgeting with one of her stolen buttons. “I’ve felt that way, sometimes. Not with talking, but…with other things.”

Affection softened the knot in his chest, and Molly reached out to muss the rat’s nest of her hair. His hands felt steadier just from that. “I don’t doubt it. And…I’m not saying everyone in the circus was that bad. What I _am_ saying is that when I finally found my voice, I most definitely knew who my real friends were. When this is over and fixed up, I don’t want Caleb to have any doubt that we’re his.”

“Right!” Nott said, looking galvanized at the thought.

“And I’ve got to say, Nott, you’ve probably been handling this the best out of any of us. This…this isn’t how goblins usually treat people in Caleb’s state, is it?”

“No. Just me. Mostly how goblins treat goblins who are like Caleb is how I treat the mice Caleb brings me.”

“Ah. That’s…that’s ghoulish.”

“Yes.”

“…I mean, it’s not like he’d even be more than a mouthful for any of us and right, right, bad joke, bad taste, too far, sorry.”

Nott threw her button at his head anyway, before scampering to retrieve it. Molly took advantage of her having her back to him for a moment to muster up the nerve to ask what had really been on his mind. It was a petty thing to ask, perhaps. He knew even that he’d regret it later. But his nerves were still a little shaken by Nott suddenly digging into his past and so Molly found himself seized with the overwhelming urge to take something _back_.

Besides, while memories of his own checkered and brief past probably accounted for part of his behavior towards Caleb, Molly could at least admit to himself that it didn’t account for all of it. And anything that kept Nott from prying deeper and finding that out somehow seemed like a very good thing, there and then.

“And I mean, this does put pay to your plans, doesn’t it?”

Nott froze, mid-stoop. He could see the tension in her shoulders, even under the billowing, oversized cloak she wore. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean, if he can’t even remember any magic words, he’s not exactly going to be changing you, is he?”

Nott moved so fast she was almost a blur. Suddenly she was standing right in front of Molly, her face right up close to his so that her huge yellow eyes seemed like the only thing in the world. Molly was ashamed of himself for flinching, but the reflex was probably unavoidable when faced with a shock like that.

“This doesn’t change anything. Or matter. At all.” Nott said, quiet and cold. “Because we’re going to fix him. Just like you said, just now. We’re going to fix him. And if _you_ can’t find a way, _I_ will.”

She patted his cheek, and smiled to show all her broken teeth, and then she turned and sauntered back towards her bedroll. She passed by Caleb on the way, however, and paused to regard him. Her face was in shadow, from Molly’s perspective, and he wondered what she was thinking.

Then the little goblin patted Caleb on the head, fussed with his blanket a bit, as if everything else in the world had faded except for the two of them. Except when Caleb stirred and opened his eyes, she winced and muttered a hasty “sorry” before trying to convince him to go back to sleep.

Molly felt guilty for wondering. As if to make it up to her, he went over to toss his cloak over Caleb. “It’s all right, friend,” he said. “Just a late night chat. Sorry we woke you.”

Maybe Caleb understood, or maybe it was just something in the reassuring tones that Molly and Nott adopted, coupled with the added weight on his back, but Caleb soon settled back into still and silent sleep. Nott offered Molly a wary nod, one professional to the other, before she settled down to sleep beside the wizard she doted on like a son. 

Molly returned to his watch. He resolved that he’d find some way to properly apologize to Nott later, once they’d both had a bit of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know Caleb technically shouldn't be able to have any point-of-view sections, because by rules as written Caleb currently has no grasp of language of any kind at all.
> 
> But it didn't seem right to go through this entire fic without somehow hearing from him periodically. I fudged things just a bit with Frumpkin as the explanation. I've only ever seen Feeblemind used once before in the campaign, when Delilah hit Tiberius with it. Tiberius didn't have a familiar to work with, not the same way Caleb does. So, even after this, I thought he and his cat might still manage to be on the same wavelength. 
> 
> Otherwise, writing Caleb's bit was just an interesting challenge. It was my first time attempting a deliberate Stylistic Suck. I kept running his bit through text analyzers to make sure I didn't get too fancy, which was surprisingly hard.


	3. Blood is shed

The cat was gone. It felt like it had taken the rest of him with it.

His friends were not his friends anymore. They would not let him look for it. There had been enemies, but they were all dead. The others still dragged him away when they saw him searching for the cat. That made him angry. He tried to hurt them, tried to get away from them, so he could find it. The little green one finally wrapped her arms around him and talked to him with shining eyes and even if he did not know the words, he knew what she was trying to say. _Gone_. The cat was gone. It would not come back.

Everything got harder, after that. He knew he was slow and not smart before. But he could hide in the cat and let things make a little more sense for a little while. Now he felt helpless. He hated it. He knew there was no other way for him.

It was easy to forget things. That scared him. Not the cat, though. He did not forget, not even as time went on. He did not forget how angry he was that it was gone. He did not forget how angry he was that he was helpless now.

Their other friend joined them, a while after that – the bright one. She made everyone happy when they saw her. He felt better, too. She showed the blue one a piece of paper, and that paper led to the blue one and the little green one hugging him. The only reason he did not shove the blue one away was because he did not want to shove the little green one, too. The bright one kept watching him the whole time.

Before they went to sleep that night, she took his hand and brought him somewhere, away from the others. He did not know if he wanted to go, at first.  But then she smiled at him in her strange, bright way and he felt better, and he followed.

*  *  *

Frumpkin had taken an arrow from a startled gnoll and vanished in a plume of dust. Caleb hadn’t really recovered. Before, it had been obvious that he knew something was wrong with him, but he’d also tried to adapt – and, with Nott’s help, he hadn’t done too bad at it under the circumstances. Now, he was borderline catatonic most of the time, beyond what it took to walk – almost as if he was still casting his mind out and searching for a cat that wasn’t even on this plane anymore.

He also didn’t trust them anymore. Molly didn’t know if Caleb blamed them outright for Frumpkin’s death, but he’d gotten furious at them for dragging him away from the battlefield afterwards and was only just now, days later, starting to relax around them again. So far, only Nott had earned forgiveness, and the couple of days before she’d done so had been rather harrowing just because of how hard it suddenly was to get Caleb to eat.

For his part, Molly counted himself lucky that Caleb had at least stopped trying to bite him whenever he reached out. It hurt to have lost the one point of connection he’d been able to maintain with his friend. He couldn’t lie to himself and pretend otherwise, much as he tried to keep up a casual front for the others. Because he also knew better than to try and force the issue for his own sake, for his own piece of mind. Caleb didn’t want most of them near him anymore, and so if staying at a safe distance in order to keep protecting him was the best Molly could hope for, he’d take what he could get.

Just as the group’s mood was at its lowest, however, they woke up to the sight of Yasha stoking the previous evening’s campfire. Yasha was always a blessed sight, but after the past week and change Molly could have fallen to his knees and worshipped her like an angel.

It didn’t take long to catch her up on how things had been since they’d last seen one another – _bad_ , mostly. To Molly’s surprise, it also didn’t take Yasha especially long to be caught up on what had happened to one of their number. In fact, Beau was barely halfway done explaining it before Yasha’s eyes flashed over to the brand on his forehead.

Her expression went stormy. “I know the magic you’re talking about. I’ve seen it used in other places. And yeah – it’s not just Caleb.” She nodded to him. “Hedge wizards, clerics caught worshipping the wrong gods…it’s really catching on as a punishment.” Distaste lay thick and plain in her voice.

“Why haven’t we heard anything about this?!” Jester demanded.

“It’s still not too widespread. _Yet_. The magic involved is pretty powerful. Not every town and village can afford to keep a mage like that on hand.”

“Ain’t we just the lucky ones,” Fjord muttered bitterly.

“Is it permanent?” Beau asked. “Have you heard anything about that?”

“Rumors,” Yasha said. “I’ve heard about people shaking it off after a while, but I don’t know if that’s just wishful thinking or something else. But…I’ve also heard that a strong enough cleric can undo it.” She inclined her head towards Jester, who sighed miserably and stared at her lap.

“I am not strong enough,” she said, each word sounding as though it pained her. “I’ve tried, again and again, but…I don’t think it matters how often I try. I think I am simply not strong enough.”

To everyone’s visible amazement, Yasha answered with a smile.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I think know a guy. Or maybe I should say… _you_ know a guy.”

From within the tangled mess of leather and fur she wore, Yasha pulled out a tiny, folded slip of paper which she passed over to Jester. Jester unfolded it, read it, read it again – and then she gasped, her tail lashing with renewed energy.

The rest of the group, Caleb included, crowded around to see what had turned Jester’s mood around so suddenly. Molly recognized one of the tiny little handmade flyers she’d first made in Zadash, exhorting all and sundry to worship the Traveler.

Except, then he saw that it _wasn’t_ one of the original twenty, but a very faithful replica.

Yasha chuckled fondly as she regarded them all. “I really wish I could draw like you,” she said to Jester. “Shame I don’t have time to practice like they have.”

She’d passed by a village not two days ago on her way to catch up to them, and had lingered long enough to get some particularly stubborn wounds healed up by the local cleric. Because Yasha was a woman who always liked to know where the exits were – which was part of what Molly loved about her – she’d gone snooping through the vestibule a bit while waiting for the old man to tend to some business, and it was there that she’d found a secret shrine to the Traveler.

“Poor guy thought I was gonna turn him in. But when I told him I knew the one who started these pamphlets, he was pretty over the moon. And I think he might just be strong enough to fix Caleb.”

Jester let out a delighted laugh and, apparently overcome by relief, flung her arms around Caleb. Nott hugged him from the other side. “Did you hear that, Caleb? You are going to get better, soon!”

Molly saw Caleb’s expression go dour, saw him tense up – Jester had not quite earned his trust again, even if she seemed to have momentarily forgotten that much. But the presence of Nott kept him from lashing out there and then.

And, if Molly was very much not mistaken, so did something he was seeing in Yasha’s expression, in her fond, soft smile and impossibly old eyes.

That night after a full day’s travel in a new direction, Molly’s suspicions were further borne out when Yasha asked Caleb if she could take him somewhere. He probably didn’t understand the question, but he let her take his hand with only a moment’s hesitation and start to lead him off somewhere.

Nott was far less easily trusting. “Where are you taking him?” she asked warily, pausing in the act of sharpening Caleb’s dagger by the fire.

“Not anywhere far,” Yasha said. “Maybe just somewhere with less trees. So we can see the moon a bit better. Sometimes it’s good for you to just…stop and look at the moon for a little while.”

“And then what?”

“Then I think I know some exercises that might help him sleep. Thought I could show him. They’re kinda loud, though. Didn’t want to bother anyone.”

“Well…all right.” Nott still looked a little suspicious, and acted on that suspicion by giving Caleb his dagger back. “Don’t be gone too long,” she said, patting his hand.

Molly found himself unable to stay silent, after that. “Nott, it’s _Yasha_ for god’s sake. She’s not going to hurt him. I’d trust Yasha to keep him safe from anything out there more than I’d trust any of us.”

“Good,” Nott said, and settled back down in front of the fire. “Don’t be gone long. Caleb, remember which end is the pointy one.”

Molly cast Yasha an apologetic look, an _I hope you understand_ sort of look. She smiled back in that utterly unruffled way Yasha had, a smile that said _of course I do_. Then she led Caleb away, into the shadows and out of sight.

Molly sat back down with a sigh, glanced over to check on Nott, and _of course_ she was already gone.

She was back within half an hour, though, grumbling bitterly to herself, her efforts to follow the two having apparently been stymied by the thick forest around them. Molly watched her take several long swigs from her flask, and felt his earlier annoyance draining away.

“He’ll be okay, Nott,” he said softly.

“Yasha always disappears,” Nott said, worry echoing in her tone like ripples in a pond. “I don’t want her to disappear while she’s with him.”

Reassurances were suddenly harder to give. Molly opened his mouth, then shut it again and looked away from the goblin’s worried face, because what could he really say? Yasha did always disappear, in the end. He loved her anyway, she always turned up again, but there was no denying that he also didn’t know _why_.

He just had to trust her. And while that was easy for him to do after how long he’d known her, trying to exhort Nott to feel the same way would probably only result in more hurt feelings. He’d had enough of bringing those on himself for the next few days.

*  *  *

She took him to a place where the trees were less and the sky was bright overhead. Then she pressed a small, sharp thing into his hand, like the little green one had given him. When he showed the other one to her, she smiled and nodded like he’d done something good.

Then she stepped back from him. Then she went into a crouch, and something changed. Then she was the scariest predator he remembered ever seeing.

He slashed without thinking. Then he did think, and he felt awful, but she shook her head and motioned for him to come at her again. She _growled_ , and the sound scared him, so he attacked. This time he cut her cheek. He almost stopped, but when he tried to remember why he should, that was one more thing he had forgotten.

Because it felt _good_ , to see the blood. To know that he’d done something. To suddenly know that he was not helpless.

She said something. He didn’t hear it, much less understand it. His ears were ringing very loud. All he saw was her leave an opening, and his arm moved without thinking. Good. He was _tired_ of trying to think.

She caught his wrist, and now her smile showed teeth. He thought she would hurt him, but she just pushed him back and waved him forward again.

 _Again_.

He attacked. He attacked again and again and stopped seeing if he was hurting her or not. She stopped him and caught him and ducked away from him, laughing and snarling. He could smell blood, though, and so he must be doing something. He couldn’t remember why that was bad. All he could think was that here was something that had scared him and he could hurt it. He was not helpless.

He was more than this.

 _I am more than this_.

Everything hurt, except not in the way he was used to. It was a good kind of pain. It left him knowing that he was _doing_ something, he didn’t have to be towed around by the hand because he could _do something_. His arms hurt from slashing and stabbing. His legs hurt from attacking and retreating. It was hard to breathe.

He was on his knees and his hands would not work. He watched the sharp thing fall from his hand to bounce into the grass. It didn’t seem real. His breathing was loud. He couldn’t hear anything else. When she sat down in front of him and reached out to him, he flinched away and almost fell. Because he was so tired now, and she could hurt him easily.

She didn’t. She hugged him.

And suddenly she was his friend again. But he could still smell blood, he had still hurt her, but she was _smiling_. Like he’d done something good.

Maybe he had. Maybe there really had been a monster before that looked like his friend. Maybe he’d killed it, so his friend could come back.

He hugged her back. He was so tired. But maybe that was what happened when you did something good. Even his eyes hurt, stinging and hot. His vision went blurry, and the next breath he took caught and broke and hurt even more.

She rubbed his back and made gentle noises. The hug felt very nice. She was solid and warm and he slumped weakly against her until it got easier to breathe, until his vision went clear again.

Then she picked him up like he was not any bigger than a cat. His bright, strong, warm friend carried him back to the others.

*  *  *

Fjord called out from his place on watch that someone was coming, but he needn’t have bothered. Neither Nott nor Molly had slept, and they could both hear the sound of leaves rustling and twigs breaking as whoever it was did not even try to be quiet. After a moment, Yasha emerged from the shadows, supporting a swaying, visibly exhausted Caleb with an arm around his shoulders.

“Caleb!” Nott cried, getting up and hurrying to go check on him. To Molly’s surprise and delight, however, Caleb stumbled over to her and hugged her so enthusiastically that her feet left the ground. Nott yelped in startled alarm at first, before laughing and returning the hug. When Caleb set her down, it was only for the sake of going to hug Fjord, and then Molly, who despite having seen this happen twice found himself freezing up.

“Was it something I said?” he asked blankly, looking from Caleb to Yasha.

“Maybe,” Yasha said. She caught Caleb’s arm as he went to wake up Beau and Jester. “Maybe let ‘em sleep. Hugs tomorrow. You’ve had a long night.”

As Caleb and Nott went to settle down for the night, Yasha signaled to Fjord that she’d take over on watch. Molly waved her over to him, intending to keep her company. She sat down beside him and didn't so much as twitch when Molly leaned against her. After a moment, she started to run her fingers softly through his hair. And all was quiet and still and soft for a few minutes more, until Nott’s and Caleb’s breathing grew as slow and steady as Beau’s, Jester’s, and Fjord’s.

Only then did Molly speak. His voice sounded just as he felt, in that moment – heavy, sleepy, and wistful.

“Do you ever miss the circus, Yasha?”

He felt her fingers pause as they ran through his hair. Only for a moment, though.

“Sometimes,” his friend said, after a thoughtful hum. “You?”

“Sometimes,” Molly agreed. _Sometimes_ probably meant a bit more for him than it did for her. Then again, maybe not. Yasha was…hard to read. Even after all this time.

He liked to think they were friends, though, as evidenced by the fact that Yasha let him do things like this – lean right up against her, wrap his tail around her leg, kiss her cheek. From the way she sometimes pet his hair like he was a favored cat, without him even having to ask. 

It was absolutely for his sake more than hers’. He knew it, she knew it, but she indulged him and he was grateful. It wasn’t that he liked making her uncomfortable, and he knew she was where physical contact was concerned. It was just that sometimes he couldn’t resist. There was something so reassuringly solid about Yasha, like a mountain in a storm, and he could just lean against her and be still.

Two years was probably just a blink of an eye to her, but as far as Molly was concerned, he’d known her his entire life and said life had precious little else in the way of stability. Yasha was not always _there_ , no. But Yasha always turned up eventually.

Once upon a time, he’d thought the circus would always be there – but then, the circus had represented the first bit of structure and certainty in his life. It had given him a job to do, a role to fill. It had given him a family, people who would smile at him. Then it had all been taken away from him by a bit of bad luck and a system he was nowhere near strong enough to fight.

Yet he hadn’t been forced to go back to being alone again. Instead, he’d found himself falling in with this bunch of nuts. Instead of being one of the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities, he’d become one of the Mighty Nein. And it wasn’t the same, not by any stretch, but it was still good and he’d still had so many moments of being _happy_ with them. Even in the hard times, even through the secrets, he trusted them and could laugh with them and he well and truly enjoyed the dynamic he lived with now.

But all of that had been disrupted for a couple of weeks now. It only hit Molly in that moment just how drained he’d become attempting to keep up with that and adapt to that. He’d wrung himself out trying to keep things moving and trying to keep everyone hoping, himself included, and he was only just noticing now that he could lean against Yasha and _stop_ trying.

If all of this had tired _him_ out to this degree, no wonder Caleb had been sleeping so much.

“Mind if I ask what you did to him?”

“Just tried to help him work out some things. I overheard Beau talking about how he’s kind of like an animal now. And that got me thinking…sometimes being like an animal isn’t so bad. Sometimes you’ve just got to get angry and let loose. It was like he wasn’t really letting himself do that. Maybe he didn’t know how. So I basically goaded him into attacking me, I guess.” Yasha hummed thoughtfully and tossed another stick onto the fire. “That sounds kinda bad when I say it like that.”

“Seems like it worked, though. It’s like you…unknotted something in him. Haven’t seen him this relaxed in days.”

“I hope so. He had a lot of anger pent up.” She chuckled softly. “I’m not surprised he couldn’t really figure out how to let go, though. I mean, he’s still Caleb.”

“You okay?” Molly asked, remembering Caleb’s knife and Nott’s lessons. He felt foolish for asking, but knew he would have felt guilty if he hadn’t. Yasha laughed in genuine amusement, then, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer, as if to physically shield him from foolish anxieties.

“ _Yes_ , I’m okay, dummy. He’s still Caleb. I could still pick him up in one arm. I _did_ , for most of the walk back.”

 “Well…good,” Molly muttered, for lack of anything else to say. He settled himself more comfortably against Yasha’s side and half-closed his eyes, watching the rejuvenated flames dance.

He really was so tired, and this had always been one of his favorite ways to sleep, but one question still weighed heavily on his mind and he knew he would know no peace until it was asked.

“You really think this’ll work, Yasha? You really think we can fix this?”

“Yeah,” Yasha said, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “It’ll be okay. You should try to sleep, Molly. Long day tomorrow.”

She didn’t make him move, and Mollymauk was so grateful for this that his chest hurt. Just for once, just like this, sleeping was as easy as closing his eyes and letting go.


	4. Things get better

It was two days later, and the Mighty Nein stood all together on a ridge looking over a small village in a vast valley.

“This is the place?” Molly asked.

“This is it,” Yasha said.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Nott demanded. “Let’s hurry up and go see this fancy cleric!”

“One sec, Nott,” said Fjord, shading his eyes against the sun as he regarded the lay of the land. “We don’t want to go rushing into another bad situation here.”

“This guy could have called the Crownsguard to come snooping around since Yasha passed through,” Beau added.

“What do you want to do?” Yasha asked.

“Go in ahead, scope the place out a bit,” Beau answered.

The barbarian hummed thoughtfully. “Sounds good. I’ll go with you.”

“And of course I have to go!” Jester said, nodding determinedly. “We are kindred souls, sharing a sacred bond. I know he will help us if I am with him.”

“I’ll stay here with Caleb,” Molly added, raising a hand. “Keep an eye on him.” He glanced at Caleb, who looked back at him with polite incomprehension. “If you don’t mind.”

Nott looked like she minded very definitely. “Maybe I should stay with him instead.”

“Nott, put yourself in, well… _your_ hypothetical shoes for a second. You’re casing out a situation that could be a trap. It’s a situation we need to bring Caleb into. Who would _you_ rather have scouting for traps – you or me?”

Jester leaned down to address Nott in a loud whisper. “Probably you. I mean, look at him.”

That got the first smile out of Nott that Molly had seen in two days, so he didn’t mind gesturing grandly at himself to emphasize Jester’s point.

“All right,” Nott conceded, after a moment’s further deliberation. She walked over to pat Caleb on the arm. “We’ll be back soon. Don’t let Molly try anything while we’re gone. We’ll be back soon, and…and everything will be okay.”

“What exactly do you think I’d try?” Molly demanded, torn between being affronted and amused. Nott just mimed having her eye on him, before she set off with the rest of the group down towards the village. Molly waved them on their way, before he turned to address Caleb once more.

“Well. It seems the morning is ours’.”

In the end, he spent it by spreading his coat out on the ground, so he and Caleb could lay down on it side by side and stare up at the sky. Molly contented himself for a little while by looking for pictures in the clouds. Maybe Caleb did the same.

But eventually – whether out of confusion or simple boredom, Caleb reached out to squeeze Molly’s hand. Molly looked over to his friend and smiled when he saw the by-now-familiar expectant hope, there. It was a look that said Caleb was tired of quiet and was hoping Molly would alleviate it. In a way, it was easier to read Caleb now than it had ever been or, shortly, than it ever would be again.

That was okay, though. Molly had never been one to mind a challenge.

“You’re going to be okay, you know,” he murmured to him. He stroked his thumb over the back of Caleb’s hand, back and forth and back and forth, a pointy of steady pressure and movement that settled his nerves as much as it did the other man’s. “You are. This…this is going to work. I _know_ it is. It has to.” He believed as fiercely as he could believe in anything that there _was_ some kind of justice in the world. Sometimes you just had to be the one to carry it out.

Caleb had been through enough – there had to be a balance on the other side. If there wasn’t, what was the _point_?

“Everyone’s going to come back, say it’s safe down there, then we’re going to take you down to see Jester’s friend. He’ll fix you right up. Probably after wringing us dry for everything he thinks he can get, but hey, you’re worth it.” He laughed fondly and kissed Caleb’s temple. Caleb looked over to smile at Molly and then…

It was probably an accident. It was almost certainly an accident. Caleb probably meant to kiss his forehead but Molly moved wrong at the last minute and their lips met instead.

It wasn’t much of a kiss. It lasted only a second or two before Molly’s wits caught up with him and he pulled away, and Caleb seemed to think nothing of it, not even enough to be alarmed by Molly’s reaction. And that was _fine_ , because it meant Molly was safe to stare fixedly back up at the sky and take a long moment to just be incredibly flustered.

“…and, as I was saying, in a few hours’ time you’ll probably be too embarrassed to look me in the eye ever again,” he finally said, when he trusted his voice again. “ _Especially_ after that. And that’s fine, I understand. I mean, hell with it, that’s why I’m telling you anything right now. If I know you – and to be fair I try not to delude myself into thinking I do – you’ll start trying to pretend none of this ever happened the second you get back on your feet. I’d probably do the same, if I were you. I just…”

Gods, why was he getting emotional _now_ , he’d thought he’d gotten this out of his system that evening with Yasha. “…I hope I made things easier. I really do. And, and maybe try to think about this later, even if you don’t want to talk. I hope all of this helps you see that you don’t _have_ to keep us at arm’s length. If you want to, if you’re happier that way, that’s fine, but…sometimes I think it’s just because you think you still need to keep your exits open.”

Damn it. He clearly hadn’t gotten anything out of his system at all. In fact, a thought occurred to Mollymauk in that moment that left him feeling genuinely shaken and scared. He half sat up and so did Caleb, obviously ready to follow him wherever Molly decided to go. Instead, Molly pulled his friend closer to him, pressing their brows together and closing his eyes as he spoke, low and rough and maybe just a bit desperate.

“Don’t run out on us just because you’re embarrassed, okay? Please?” Because he could see it happening so clearly in his head – Caleb so stubbornly refusing to deal with any of this that he just took Nott and disappeared one night for the sake of his fear or his pride, or maybe even disappearing without Nott. And Molly really, really did not want that to happen. “We’d miss you.”

He didn’t care if he was kept at arm’s length from here on out or if he was invited closer. Something about Caleb made you want to protect him and Molly was long past resisting the urge.

“Just…let us all pretend this never happened while we keep on taking care of you anyway. However you want us to. That’s what friends are for.” Friends and maybe more.

There. He’d said his peace. He would just have to hope it was enough.

Caleb was reluctant to pull away from the hug, but eventually settled back down beside Molly again, the two of them staring up at the grey winter sky. The wizard seemed to have gotten his fill of voices and noise for the moment, at least, and they lapsed back into comfortable silence watching the clouds and holding hands.

He eventually heard the voices calling their names from far enough away that it wasn’t too much of a shock. He heard those voices gradually getting louder, one faster than the other, and eventually footsteps racing through the grass, coming up the hill. Molly sat up, shading his eyes, to see Nott and Jester hurrying up towards them. Nott was covering the distance at a dead run. Jester was somehow managing to keep up even as she skipped and twirled and danced with glee.

“Come on!” Nott said, hurrying over to Caleb and trying to tug him upright. “Come on, come on, let’s go!”

“Five _hundred_ gold for one spell!” Jester said, sighing theatrically as she took the wizard’s other hand. “You are lucky you’re worth it, Caleb. Let’s go get you back!” Molly saw as she reached out that two of the girl’s rings were missing from her fingers.

Caleb let himself be pulled to his feet, looking between the beaming tiefling and the eager goblin. Molly got up, picked up his coat, shook the dead grass off of it, and pulled it on. “What’d I tell you?” he said to Caleb. “I normally charge a mint for fortunes that accurate.”

“You told Caleb’s fortune? For free? Not fair!” Jester pouted as she tucked her arm through his. Nott, of course, took charge of Caleb.

“Sorry, darling. Maybe buy me a couple of celebratory drinks and see if you can talk me into it. I have a feeling I’ll be feeling generous tonight.”

“What did his fortune say?”

“Now that’s a secret. Or at least it costs extra.”

“The first time we met, you let everybody see what my fortune was!”

“Because I knew just from looking at you that you’d tell them all anyway.”

Jester opened her mouth, closed it again, and then looked thoughtful.

“You know, that is probably true,” she said at last, and giggled. “Or maybe you can just buy me some new rings, since I paid your part of the fee.”

“I think that’s fair enough.”

Arm in arm, the four friends walked together down towards the village, eager to at last fix what was broken.

*  *  *

There were more people here. He did not like that. They were surrounded by big sleeping places. Sometimes some of his friends went into places like these, but he always stayed behind with someone else. He remembered that he had not liked places like this even before everything went wrong. He did not like them even more now.

But his friends wanted him to be here. And they looked so happy, happier than he had seen them in a long time. The little green one did not stop talking to him as she led him along by the hand. The blue one and the purple one walked behind, talking together. They smiled at him whenever he looked back to make sure they were still there.

He did not want to be here. At least he was here with them to protect him.

And he was not helpless. He had not forgotten that yet. He could protect them, too.

They brought him to one of the bigger sleeping places. It was quiet inside, even with all his friends talking to one another and talking to a stranger. He let them talk while he stood and stared at a bright image set into one wall. The walls were the color of bone, the ground was soft, there were lots of places to sit but he wanted to stand.

After a little while they stopped talking, and the little green one led him to stand in front of the stranger. He looked down at her, frowning and scared, but of course he did not understand what she said.

Then the stranger reached towards his face, and that was _wrong_ , that was _bad_ , the fear got so bad that he stopped being able to see for a minute. When he could see again he saw his arm out, holding the sharp thing the little green one had given him. The stranger had backed away and was looking scared and that was _good_.

Except it was not good. The big green one took his arm and tried to make him lower it as he spoke. The one who was not any bright color stood between him and the stranger. The little green one was yelling at the stranger. They did not look happy anymore. They looked worried and sad. Like he felt.

Then the purple one was there, red eyes fixed on his face. He was speaking low and soft, running careful hands up and down his arms, until he somehow couldn’t make himself stay ready to attack anymore and his arms fell back to his sides. His friend hugged him after that, which was good. It made it easier to see and think and breathe.

He remembered that night in the forest alone with the bright one. He remembered how he’d chased away a monster that looked like his friend and she’d hugged him just like this. So maybe he had done something good, the stranger had tried to hurt him but he’d scared him so he wouldn’t anymore. He’d kept himself safe once and now it was time to stop.

When the purple one stepped away, he offered him the sharp thing. His friend smiled, took it, and kissed Caleb’s forehead before stepping aside. The stranger, still looking scared – as he should – stepped forward. This time no one reached towards his face, but took his hands instead. That was okay.

He stared down thoughtfully at his own hands as the stranger spoke in words that seemed to hum inside him. He felt light and warm and then he felt something grab hold of something inside his head and _pull_ …

*  *  *

…and then everything was _light_ and _noise_ and _meaning_ and his mind was so full of _words_ that for a moment Caleb thought his head might split with the weight of them all.

When the rush of it all faded, when the tumult of information became something more than a torrent of white noise, he found himself on his hands and knees on the floor of a church? Caleb lifted his head and looked around. _The_ church, yes, the temple where everyone had brought him to…

He tried to think back over the past while, but the memories were fuzzy and strange. He knew he might be able to pick them apart later, but suddenly Nott was right in front of him, kneeling down to stare up into his face with worried yellow eyes.

“Caleb?” she asked, twisting her fingers anxiously.

He stared at her blankly for a moment, and suddenly Nott looked like she was about to cry. Just the sight made his heart seize with dread, and the shock of that shook a memory loose in his head. Of course. He hadn’t been himself for the past while. He didn’t quite remember how or why he hadn’t been himself, but he remembered how hard Nott had worked to be there for him, how much she’d worried.

“ _Schwester_ ,” he said, reaching out to push her hood back so he could tousle her hair. His voice sounded hoarse and rough and strange to him. “Hello again, Nott.”

There were still tears gathering in her eyes, but Nott suddenly smiled so big and bright, and then she hugged him so hard that Caleb fell over. He let out a startled cry, before he hugged her back and pressed his face into the top of her head and just let himself be lost to emotion for a moment.

Jester appeared to shake him out of such deep thoughts, as Jester was so good at doing. Her face suddenly popped into Caleb’s view, upside down from this angle.

“Caleb? How many fingers am I holding up? How about now? What’s your name? What’s my name?”

“One, two three…no, sorry, one, two, three, four, five…”

“Caleb’s back!” Jester cried in glee, before joining Nott in hugging him. Caleb had just enough time to see a swirl of heavily embroidered cloth flash across his vision before Mollymauk was there to join in, laughing.

Fjord confined himself to clasping Caleb’s shoulder for a moment once Caleb had struggled back into a sitting position. Beau punched him comparatively gently on his other shoulder. Caleb was profoundly grateful to both of them for their restraint, even if it might only have been because there was no more room to hug him. Yasha, for her part, hung back all together – though she offered Caleb a nod and a warm smile when Jester, Nott, and Molly all helped him to stand up.

And then all his friends were looking at him and smiling at him and asking if he was okay and it was really nice but it was also a _lot_ , especially with his head still full of fog. So Caleb was proud of himself for managing to smile back at them all for even a second or two before the effort of keeping his head up became too much to bear, and he let his gaze fall to his feet instead.

 “Ah, yes,” he said. “Hello again, yes. I…don’t entirely remember what has been going on, I confess. I’m sure it will all come back to me later. But I know I have been…not myself for some time now. I do not know what you all did to fix that, but you obviously did something, and I am feeling much more myself now and…and thank you. Truly.” Momentarily overcome, to the point that his eyes were starting to sting, Caleb offered the rest of the group a short bow.

Even as anxiety took its familiar perch in his mind and on his tongue, the smile didn’t fade. Not entirely. His chest felt as light as his head had, his heart was warm, because his friends had saved him. This wasn’t just a matter of shaking him out of a state or pulling a crossbow bolt out of his chest. They’d carried him and cared for him for probably _weeks_ like he was…worth it.

That was wonderful and strange, and so he couldn’t help but smile. It was easy to do so, in that moment. It was easy to admit in the privacy of his newly revitalized and functioning head that he loved them dearly.

Still. The sight before his eyes was also a _lot_. So even if he felt impossibly embarrassed to do so, Caleb carried on to add: “And I cannot think of anything more to say, and this is all kind of a lot to deal with, so if it is okay with you all I would like it if we left this place and went somewhere where I could get my cat back.” He didn’t speak fast enough to keep his voice from breaking just a little. Damn it all.

“Drinks are on Molly!” Jester cried immediately. Whether she genuinely didn’t notice or simply pretended not to, he was grateful anyway.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that at all,” Molly said, eyebrows raised.

“Well, too bad, ya did,” Beau retorted, hands on her hips. “When you skipped out on paying your part of the spell cost.”

“You bastards could have come up and gotten me and I would have given you the money!”

Jester put a hand to her chest as if wounded. “Are you… _blaming_ us for being too eager to get Caleb back to normal? Molly, I am _shocked_ at you.”

Caleb reached down to scoop Nott up onto his back. She grinned and held on tight. As Beau, Jester, and Molly continued to argue with varying degrees of good-naturedness, he turned to Fjord. “Is there an inn?”

“Yeah. Nice enough place. Can’t speak to the quality of the drink yet, though.”

“That is fine. If it has a room with a door I can lock and a brazier I can burn shit in, that is more than enough.”

Fjord grinned. “Think that can be arranged easy enough.”

Caleb looked to Yasha, and felt his heart race for a moment for reasons he still couldn’t quite remember. “Are you joining us?”

“For a little while,” she said. “Especially if Molly’s buying.”

“Betrayal,” Molly grumbled theatrically, going over to sling an arm around Yasha’s shoulders. “ _Fine_ , I know when I’m beaten.”

“Party!” Jester and Beau cheered, falling in with the rest of the Mighty Nein. Their voices echoed quite loudly in the temple, however, which was all the encouragement any of them needed to head for the door and back out into the weak afternoon sunlight.

Fjord led the way to the inn, where they paid for three rooms for the night. After that, Caleb was left to focus on resummoning Frumpkin while everyone else scattered in different directions to attend to various shopping. He didn’t ask too many details, but imagined that they’d probably had to put off a lot of supply buying for the sake of laying low over the past while. At least Jester remembered to pull out some of his reserves of charcoal and incense from her haversack before dashing off.

Only Nott stayed behind, settling herself on the other side of their little bedroom to poke and prod at her chemistry set. That was fine. Her presence hardly counted as a disturbance.

Caleb sat down in front of the room’s little hearth and drew the requisite runes on and around it in chalk. Then he gathered up his herbs and charcoal and slowly, methodically began to add them to the fire. Once it was burning hot and high, he lit the incense sticks from it and set them in a careful pattern around himself.

The air grew heavy and thick, smelling sweet and strange. It was even a little hard to make out Nott now as anything but a lump a few feet away. But that was good, that was fine. Like this, it was easier than ever to close his eyes and cast his mind out, out, further than he could normally, past this plane and into the fey places where the spirit he’d made his pact with dwelled between lifetimes.

When Caleb reached out again, the spirit came to him. Then he blinked, and suddenly he was back in the room, back in the real world, perfectly ordinary but for a little hole in the fabric of space that was just closing up behind a ginger tabby.

Frumpkin looked up at him and chirped.

“Come here,” Caleb whispered, pulling the cat into his lap and scratching his ears. Frumpkin immediately started to purr, kneading Caleb’s lap, leaning up to nudge his face against Caleb’s chin. Safe in the knowledge that his back was to Nott, Caleb nuzzled the cat in return before hugging him close for a moment.

“Good cat,” he murmured. “Wonderful cat. Best cat.”

He felt Frumpkin’s mind touch his lightly, and felt…approval there. _All is as it should be_ , said the cat.

Caleb nodded fervently, running his fingers again and again through his familiar’s fur. _Thank you_ , he thought back. _For helping me remember. “You are more than this”, you said. I might have stopped trying if you didn’t._

 _Think nothing of it,_ Frumpkin replied, before jumping up onto Caleb’s shoulders. _You’re far more interesting this way anyway_. Then he laid himself down, long and languid, like the world’s best, warmest scarf.

A knock at the door startled Caleb and caused Nott to drop something. But it was only Fjord’s voice on the other side. _“Caleb, Nott, you guys in there? Molly’s about to start taking orders if you wanna come down.”_

“Be right there!” Caleb and Nott called together. They looked at one another, and smiled, and got up to head downstairs and join their friends.


	5. Life goes on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so long I considered splitting it into two. But I figured I'd kept you guys waiting long enough. Hope the end is worth it!

Of course, it was never that easy.

_He flings firebolt after firebolt at the heavy iron door, but all they do is provide brief stars of light in the otherwise pitch black. He’s too exhausted for anything else, has used up every drop of magic within his pathetic body beyond these simple party tricks. The shackles only barely provide enough leeway for this much._

_He could try to sleep, to get it all back, but something about this place makes him fear what might become of him if he lingers even a few hours more._

_Maybe it’s something about how…efficient his processing was. Caleb has been in prison before, but usually the guards don’t know he’s a mage. These guards did, and this place was prepared. A cell with no windows, walls of heavy stone, a door of iron. Hard to burn through or shake the place down, no way to orient himself to get a message out to his friends or pinpoint their location. The walls feel too thick even for Nott to cast her message spell through, though he catches his ears straining for the sound of her voice anyway._

_Because, much as he’s trying to be practical about this, trying to stay focused, there’s some small, stupid part of him trying to insist that he shouldn’t be scared because his friends will come to save him._

_He tries to tell himself sternly to stop being an idiot. They could all be dead. He tried to buy time for any who were still alive, nothing more. It’s a minor miracle he was able to accomplish that much. They’d be fools to waste that chance. Nott, at least, is no fool._

_So he has to stay focused on the fact that it’s just him in here. He has to stay focused on the fact that he is his only hope. He can’t get_ sentimental _because if he gets sentimental he’ll get sloppy never mind the fact that the guards can obviously_ hear _him trying to escape and don’t care, he heard them laughing._

_If they were going to kill him they would have done it already. But that just means he’s free to imagine what other awful things they might have planned, and Caleb has always been blessed with a very good imagination. For the past little while, it’s been screaming in his head, playing out images of all kinds of terrible tortures behind his eyelids._

_It’s hard to breathe, maybe he shouldn’t have been throwing firebolts maybe he burned up all the air because it’s getting so hard to_ breathe _…_

_Caleb slumps back against the wall, hands over his face – not that it makes a difference to how much he can see. He gasps and wheezes and hyperventilates with useless, pathetic fear and cowardice until he gets so dizzy he thinks he might be about to pass out and maybe that would be a mercy…_

_But there is no mercy here._

_The door opens to two shadowy silhouettes and a light harsh enough to hurt his eyes. Half-mad with fear, Caleb tries to bolt past them. One grabs him, the other hits him hard enough that Caleb drops to his knees._

_Someone grabs him by the hair. He sees a flash of silver and screws his eyes shut tight, awaiting death here alone and forgotten on a dungeon floor…_

_…but death doesn’t come. Instead, he feels the grip loosen as his bangs are sliced and sawed away. He opens his eyes to the sight of a small pile of tangled, filthy reddish hair, scattered on the floor in the one shaft of light._

_He looks up at the guards, who’s faces he still can’t make out. He asks why._

_They don’t answer. They don’t look at him. They just drag him up by his shackles and march him off somewhere._

_Nott will find him. Nott will save him, like she did before. It’s a subconscious attempt at comfort, a child clinging desperately to a favored toy to that’s about to be ripped away. The thought chases itself around and around his head as he’s forcibly escorted down two hallways and shoved through a pair of double doors._

_They chain him in the middle of a magic circle, his hands bolted in front of him to a chain barely a few links long. The Crownsguard watching the doors bang their spears against the floor, and one announces the arrival of the Lawmaster._

_He is nominally given the chance to plead his case, but even if Caleb could make his mind work or his voice stop shaking, he sees in the Lawmaster’s eyes that there will be no mercy here. Her mind is decided, his fate is sealed, whatever that is to be._

_By the time she pronounces it, there’s a roaring in his ears and his breathing is so loud that he does not hear her._

_At last she steps down off her throne of judgement, picks up what looks to him from this distance like a golden seal, and holds it…into the brazier._

_He watches, transfixed, as the metal heats, going from yellow to red to white. She examines it thoughtfully, dispassionately, and then starts towards him with the unhurried gait of one who thinks nothing of what she’s about to do._

_Mad, animal fear takes over then. There is no way for him to escape. He tries anyway his feet stumbling and skidding over the polished surface of the floor as he tries to bring his hands up to protect his face. “No no no stay back stay **back** …”_

_Someone drags his head up by his newly shorn hair and he has just enough time to see the brand and see her_ eyes _before there is_ pain _, nothing but pain, burning flaming agony all through his face and down his neck and consuming his heart. He is burning just like they did just like he always knew he would he is_ screaming _…_

_Through the roar and the pain he hears her speak in an echoing arcane voice, hears something shatter, and then…_

_…and then he shatters, too._

*  *  *

Caleb inhaled a mouthful of fur and his eyes flew open to see nothing but orange in front of his eyes.

Frumpkin, apparently sensing the change in him, got up off his face to nuzzle his cheek instead, purring. Caleb stroked the cat gratefully with one hand. He kept the other firmly over his mouth as he tried to get his breathing under control, tried to blink the tears of leftover fear and remembered pain out of his eyes.

It was dark. The camp was quiet, and he was surrounded by the sleeping forms of his friends. Nott’s bony form was pressed against the back of his legs, Fjord was snoring a foot or so in front of him. He could make out the silhouette of Beau in front of the dying campfire, quietly keeping watch.

Good. It didn’t seem like he’d woken anyone else up.

Still. The thought of just laying here quietly and trying to go back to sleep – or worse, actually _succeeding_ in going to sleep – was too much to bear. It seemed like all that would accomplish was inviting the dreams back for a second attack. Caleb tried to be a man who did not make the same mistakes twice.

He got to his feet instead. There was no doing that subtly. It was a minor miracle that only Beau looked over at him. “Evenin’,” she said. “Don’t suppose you’re here to give me a night off?”

“No,” Caleb say. “Ah, sorry. I’m just, um…I need to…” He gestured vaguely away from camp.

Beau made a face. “If you need to do your business, you don’t have to ask me for _permission_. I’m not your goddamn tutor.” She made a shooing motion at him and turned back to her watch.

Smiling in relief, Caleb stepped carefully over Nott, picked up Frumpkin, and set off on a walk. Just to the pond, he told himself. There was a pond just a few hundred feet away, he could already hear the water whispering softly as it was disturbed by the wind. He would splash some water on his face and clear his head.

He set Frumpkin down on the edge of the water. The cat sat, tilting its head to regard the small silver fish that darted through the pond, shimmering faintly under the light of the moon. Caleb knelt down beside his familiar and bent his head to splash his face, before something he saw there in his own reflection made him freeze.

Caleb Widogast was not a man who liked looking in the mirror. He could go for days without catching sight of his own face, and he preferred it that way. Once upon a time he could have gone weeks, but now he had other friends and money and those other friends often insisted on using money to stay at inns and occasionally insisted he use the water basins in those inns to wash his face. But that was fine, the water provided for that purpose was often quite clouded by the time it got to him.

The pond was quite clear, however, but for the occasional flash of a fish here and there. The moon was big and full and bright overhead. It still didn’t let him see _much_ , there in the water. But it let him see enough. Maybe even just a glimpse was enough, with the memory of the dream still so fresh and raw in his mind.

Caleb lifted a hand to his forehead, and winced as he brushed his fingers over the raised skin of the brand. _Right_. He’d forgotten, for a few blessed days. There was no physical pain anymore, that had probably faded a while ago and he’d just been too stupid to notice at the time. But there was shame, a feeling of helpless frustration that he was only just starting to be able to put words to again. Someone had left a permanent mark on him that he had not wanted. This was not the first time it had happened, but it was the first time it had happened so visibly.

There was no chance the others had forgotten. His bangs had not quite grown back in yet, so they had been seeing this every day since it was forced upon him. Maybe they were just better at pretending than he gave them credit for. Or maybe a few weeks’ time was really enough for anyone to get used to anything.

For him, it had been three days.

Three days since he came back to himself there on the floor of a secret temple to the Traveler. Three days for his memories to slowly come untangled, for him to remember bits and pieces of his mindless time and slowly, methodically put those pieces together.

Mostly, the picture those pieces made was _indescribably_ embarrassing.

They were his memories. He could see those two weeks through his own eyes. Yet the actions and thoughts he remembered were not his. They belonged to a…pathetic, puppyish _stranger_. He could rationally see how and why he might have acted the way he had, stripped down to nothing as he’d been. Yet he was more than that, now, and so to look back on all of that as himself again felt _wrong_.

The worst part were the emotions he recalled. He remembered being scared, angry, lost, but…he also remembered feeling loved and safe and trusting, and he remembered feeling love towards the rest of the Mighty Nein to a degree that he hadn’t thought himself still capable of. While he could lock the memories off, compartmentalize them in their own book on the vast shelf of his mind, emotions were _harder_. They were _still there_ , all tangled up in the rest of him, making themselves known in unpleasantly unexpected ways.

Of course he’d cared about all of them for a while, for Nott longest of all, but he’d been able to keep those feelings burning in a secret corner of his heart, carefully tended to and controlled and shared out bit by bit only when he deemed it safe.

Now it was like his heart had been rent open and the flames were burning hotter and no one knew how to tamp them down again and he knew, he just _knew_ that sometimes all of that showed on his face now.

Sometimes he still caught himself reaching for Beau’s hand while they walked or tugging on Jester's sleeve before he spoke or leaning against Fjord as they sat and ate dinner. The worst part was that no one else appeared surprised when these strange spasms took hold of him. They would politely not say anything when Caleb hastily corrected himself, but he could see in their eyes that they’d also gotten used to him being so tactile and open-hearted even if he very fiercely wanted to _not_ be that way anymore.

“They probably still liked you better before,” he muttered darkly to his reflection. “Even though you were just an…an _uglier Jester_ , at least you were not like this.” He felt a surge of genuine resentment towards that version of himself, for leaving him with an enormous mess of impulses and memories and emotions to deal with before fucking off into nonexistence. “At least you were not suspicious and grumpy and unpleasant and _dangerous_.”

With a frustrated growl, he swiped his hand through the water, obliterating his reflection for a blessed moment. Then, acting on a wild whim, Caleb shrugged out of his coat and reached for his knife and found it was not there.

He felt a momentary surge of panic, remembering that it had been a gift from Nott and feeling terrible at the idea he might have lost it so casually. Fortunately, his newly keen mind did not leave him to flounder for long. Of course, he’d given it to Molly in one of his last acts before being restored, and in the midst of celebrations and planning afterwards he’d simply never thought to ask for it back.

 _Molly_. The thought of the tiefling made his chest feel as tight as a knot. Molly was truly the sticking point, if he was being brutally honest with himself. With everyone else, he could have kept pretending that nothing had changed and trusted them to make some degree of attempt to do the same. Maybe, eventually, with the others it would truly become like nothing had changed. Even with Nott, the roles they’d fallen into hadn’t been _so_ very different from how they’d always been. Nott had always been smarter than him in ways of survival and navigating through the world. She’d been just as patient with him as if he’d been in full possession of himself the entire time.

With Molly, there were too many memories of hanging on his every touch and word, and offering too many touches in turn. More to the point, he could remember and understand now the words of endearment Molly had offered him so easily during those times, and the memory of them made his heart race and his head spin and his cheeks burn.

Molly had been one of the most able to make the world make sense to Caleb, had known how to communicate exactly what he meant with a touch here or there where sometimes even Nott had struggled. He’d been able to soothe Caleb and help him see past the shadows and blurred uncertainty of the world. Caleb had been drawn to that and, in turn, remembered being willing to do anything to keep Molly close by him.

All in all, he looked back on his time with a shattered mind and saw himself acting as the Mighty Nein’s faithful dog…except where Molly was concerned, because Caleb could not dwell on those memories and see himself as acting like anything less than an infatuated adolescent or besotted lover.

He wondered if Molly felt the same. He was far too much of a coward to ask.  He wondered if _he_ still felt the same. Looking back on those times made his head go addlepated and his throat go dry but so did looking at Molly _now_. Was this just the humiliation of having been made so open and vulnerable against his will, were these just the last echoes of the animal he’d been, or was this what love was actually _supposed_ to feel like?

And, if so, what the _fuck_ was wrong with him, hanging all of that on a friend who’d just been trying to look after him when he’d been useless?

Caleb reminded himself stubbornly that it probably didn’t matter, as he bent his head to splash water on his face again. The cold made him wince, bracing him and grounding him back in the moment, back in reality.

“After all, if anyone liked you better that way it would be Molly,” he sighed. Frustration took such a firm hold of him then that he tried to simply tear a strip of cloth from the hem of his coat with his bare hands.

“I’ll thank you not to put words in my mouth, actually.”

Caleb swore fervently, every muscle in his body seizing up with shock. Frumpkin, responding to his surprise, turned and hissed at the figure behind them. When Caleb risked looking back, sure enough, there stood Mollymauk, sleepy-eyed and tousled. He hadn’t even buckled on his swords before coming this way, was instead just holding one in a loose grip as though he’d grabbed it and run.

“ _W-Was?_ ” Caleb stammered, his entire grasp of Common momentarily deserting him. He swallowed painfully and tried again. “What are you doing here?”

“Beau threw her shoe at me and told me I should come check on you,” Molly complained, stifling a yawn before crossing the grass between them to sit down on Caleb’s other side, keeping the wizard between him and the irritated cat.

“And why did she do that?” Caleb asked, dreading the answer.

“That’s cute. You think she tells me anything.” Molly cast him a sidelong glance, and there was a moment where the dour façade slipped, a moment where Caleb saw that Molly knew exactly why he’d been woken and why Caleb was sitting here needing to be checked on.

There was no mockery in Molly’s eyes, no cruelty or scorn, but that almost made it worse. Caleb hastily stared down at his lap, before willing Frumpkin to come over and sit there just so he’d have something else to look at.

“Well, um, thank you,” he stammered. “As you can see, I am fine. But thank you for your concern.”

He saw Molly nod out of the corner of his eye. “Clearly. Clearly you are fine. Clearly you are a man who is fine as you sit here and scold your own reflection.”

“I was not…”

“Gods, that brings back memories.”

That was…not the answer he had remotely expected. Curiosity was enough to get Caleb to lift his head. “S-Sorry?”

Molly sat with one knee drawn up to his chest, staring out into the distance at nothing very much that Caleb could see. But when he saw the wizard move, the tiefling turned his head to flash Caleb a brief, bright smile.

“Of yelling at my own reflection. It’s…cathartic, right? It shouldn’t be. That’s still just me, the same me that’s sitting here talking to you. Even if another bastard had this body before me, it’s not like he’s here to hear me now. It’s strange, isn’t it, how sometimes we feel like we’re at war with parts of ourselves. Like there’s another us that takes control sometimes and messes everything up, just to spite the ‘real’ us. Maybe that’s just an easy lie we tell ourselves. Then again, so are a lot of things.”

“Ah…if you do not mind my asking, why do you yell at yourself in the mirror?”

“Well I mean, if you don’t mind my saying so, I _probably_ had a slightly better reason than you do. In my case, I was yelling at the jackass who left behind the mess I first woke up in.” His expression grew somber, his eyes grew distant as he looked away from Caleb again. “ ‘How many enemies did you make, you bastard? Who’s going to come to me to collect on your debts?’” He chuckled without any trace of humor to it. “And, of course, I turned out to be quite right to ask those questions.“

 _Lucien, you’re alive!_ Caleb remembered that, too.

And he felt intrigued and maybe a little bit hopeful because from what he was hearing Molly really did understand. He had neatly and effortlessly laid out in words the feelings Caleb had been struggling with for days – that _someone else_ had walked around in his body for days and he’d just been left to pick up the mess they made. Even if they were technically the same person, there was no way he could internalize that feeling.

“Did anything help?” he asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice.

“Absolutely!” Molly tapped one of the glittering chains embedded in his horns, ran a finger down the peacock feathers peeking up from under his coat. “I cannot overstate how cathartic it was to really get down to the business of making this body _mine_. Every time I looked in the mirror afterwards I could see this trinket or that ink and think to myself ‘I did that’. It was like each and every one was a step further away from him and further into me.” He leaned forward to peer into the water, tilting his head slightly, apparently admiring himself with a faint smile. “Think I did a decent job, if I do say so myself.”

“I agree,” Caleb said before he could stop himself, and hastily looked back down at his cat as Molly looked at him. “But, er, I do not think tattoos will help me. Or at least, I think they would cause as many hangups as they might solve.”

“You sure? I could give you one myself. We could start out small, you could see if you liked the look. _I_ think you’d look great with a little more color.”

“…I will think on it.” He was surprised that the words were honest, but Molly really did make the idea sound tempting.

“Think on it,” Molly agreed, nodding easily. “Let me know.”

As he stared down to where Frumpkin was sprawled in his lap, Caleb saw that his cat was sprawled across his coat. His memory finally started to work again through the haze of anxieties and emotions. Right.

“In the meantime, do you have the knife I gave you?”

“What knife? When?”

“Before. In the temple. When you talked me out of stabbing that priest.”

“Oh! Right.” Molly went rummaging around the inner pockets of his coat, before pulling out the familiar blade and passing it over. “Sorry about that. Thank you for not stabbing him, by the way. Jester never would have let me hear the end of it.”

Caleb took the weapon with a nod of thanks, and smiled as he realized how familiar it still felt in his hands. Despite the dire circumstances under which it had been given, it was still a gift from Nott, and he was glad to have it back.

Frumpkin complained piteously as Caleb willed him off of his lap and onto Molly’s. Molly petted him and let him settle before looking back up at Caleb. “What are you doing?”

It was immediately obvious to Caleb that this was not going to be quite as easy as he’d thought. The coat was actually probably the nicest piece of clothing he owned. The fact that it had stood up to so much wear and tear was testament to that. It was standing up admirably to the knife now. Caleb was managing to slowly saw his way through the cloth, but it wasn’t a pretty job and it was leaving terrible fraying behind.

“Need some help?” Molly asked.

“No.”

“I could probably do that a lot faster.”

“I’ve got it, I…” His hand twitched and so did the knife, cutting upwards into the part of the coat he actually wanted to keep. Caleb groaned in frustration and defeat and passed it over. “Just do it.”

Molly pulled out his scimitar and gave it a little twirl. Frumpkin yowled in protest and went scurrying back to Caleb’s lap. “Just this much, then?”

“Yes. But, all the way along. The whole hem.”

“No sooner said than done.”

Sure enough, the task was accomplished a good deal faster with Molly’s blade than Caleb’s, which seemed rather unfair given that he knew the blades were nothing but glass. The tiefling sliced one long, neat strip of cloth about an inch long from the hem of Caleb’s coat, and left the hem a bit neater in most places in doing so. “You need to make sure to sharpen that every so often." He nodded towards the knife. "Nott’s been doing it for you, but it will be good for you to learn how to do it yourself.”

Job done, he passed both the coat and the makeshift bandage back to Caleb. Caleb shrugged back into the former and started to wind the latter around his forehead.

Molly at least made no comment until Caleb tied the makeshift bandanna off, until Caleb looked at him and gestured at his handiwork and asked: “How does this look?”

“Like you just recently sustained a massive head injury.”

“Good. Better than the alternative.”

Molly’s expression softened from joking and teasing into something a little more genuine. “We can probably find someone to get that removed. It’s not like my marks. It might work.”

“And it might not. No need to waste the money. This will do just fine.”

“You’re _worth_ the money, I thought we proved that already.”

Caleb considered the idea for a moment, then hastily shoved it aside. The fact of the matter was that it might not work, and he knew he wasn’t ready to get his hopes up only to have them dashed. He still felt too…fragile on the inside.

Molly didn’t seem ready to drop the issue, however. “We…probably should have tried to fix it up before. Guess we didn’t think that far. Sorry.”

Caleb _stared_ at Molly in speechless incredulity for a moment, before he managed to stammer: “You all were, um, quite focused on finding a way to fix me while making sure I did not wander off and die in a ditch. I think we are square, Molly.” He spoke cautiously, like a man navigating a rotten floor or thin ice, because while Caleb knew he would never be the greatest at conversations he still had the feeling that there was more to this than was on the surface, more to this than worries over scars. For Molly’s sake, as well as his own, he did not want to fuck this up, whatever _this_ was.

Fortunately, Molly seemed to have grown tired of keeping this particular secret. He looked so deeply, genuinely unhappy all of a sudden that Caleb felt a pang of sympathetic pain in his heart. Molly drew both knees up to his chest, resting his chin on top of them as his tail lashed in agitation behind him. He looked for all the world like he was shielding himself from whatever he was about to say, taking cover pre-emptively, until at last he took a deep breath, and said: “You wouldn’t have _needed_ fixing if I hadn’t run.”

Caleb’s throat felt suddenly very tight. He imagined Molly in that cell with him. He thought of Molly chained on that floor next to him. It was not a comforting mental image.

“I…I wanted you to run,” he said, trying to make his voice gentle, trying to make it reassuring, having no idea if he was succeeding. It was hard to speak at first when the memories had crept up on him again, but he tried. For his friend, he tried. “I saw Jester fall, I…I saw Nott disappear in _flames_.” Breathe, breathe, it was suddenly so hard to breathe. But he had to stay _here_ with Molly where it was safe and real and not let himself fall back there or worse still, even further…

Caleb felt a hand on his back, rubbing small, soft circles all up and down his spine. “Time for that later,” he heard Molly say quietly, as if from so very far away. “Say what you’ve got to say now.” The words unsaid echoed back to him, clear as a bell. _You’ve been voiceless long enough_.

He bent his head and pressed his hands against his mouth and struggled and gasped but _this time_ , this time he was not shaken from his panic by the sound of a heavy iron door opening. This time, he got himself under control. Then he lifted his head and stared fixedly at Molly and somehow not even the faint sheen to his vision was enough to stop Caleb then.

“I _wanted_ you to run. I, I didn’t know how many of you were still alive, but I knew _you_ were and so I wanted to give you a chance to run. If you’d been enough of a _flachwichser_ to make me watch you die in front of me instead, _then_ I would never have forgiven you, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

Fear of what might have been meant that he probably didn’t sound too reassuring by the end, and Caleb felt himself building up a rare head of conversational steam. Before he entirely realized it, Caleb had closed the distance between them to make his point by prodding Molly in the chest.

Molly and Caleb both looked down at Caleb’s hand, then back up at one another. Caleb quickly pulled away as if he’d been scalded and sat back in his spot, trying to subtly wipe at his eyes.

This was all getting to be much too much, so he added in a mumble: “And I was trying to save my own neck as well. Do not give me so much credit.” He ran his fingers anxiously through his hair, where they caught at a few tangles.

Molly laughed and clapped Caleb on the back, then he heard the tiefling rummaging around in another of his many pockets. “Then maybe I should go ahead and give you this instead.”

Caleb flinched as he felt something hard tap him lightly on the shoulder, then he looked around to see Molly holding out a book.

He gasped, snatching the book from Molly and examining what he could in the dim light. The covers were sturdy, the illustrations looked faintly glossy and the _pages_ , oh the pages crackled so _wonderfully_. He hugged the book to his chest and sniffed it carefully and felt himself grin. Whatever the contents, this was a good book.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Why?”

“It was going to be a ‘welcome back’ gift along with all the others, but it seemed appropriate to upgrade it to a ‘thanks for saving my life’ gift. Besides…” Molly’s gaze darted left, then right with exaggerated caution, before he leaned closer to Caleb to whisper conspiratorially. “I wanted to get in before Fjord blew all ours’ out of the water.”

Caleb’s thoughts was spinning in the familiar happy spirals that only a new book could bring on, but he still couldn’t miss certain details. “Others?” he asked. “Ours’?”

Molly grinned and reached out as though to flick Caleb in the forehead. When he saw the way Caleb flinched, the tiefling executed an exaggerated hand twirl instead, somehow managing to make it look entirely intentional, and poked Caleb in the chest instead. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re just the most _adorably_ dense sometimes?”

“No.” And Caleb frowned at the implication that anyone should.

“What did you think we were all running around shopping for back there?”

“Supplies. Food.”

“That, too.” Molly waved a hand dismissively. “But, mostly it was Nott’s idea. Well, Beau mentioned it first, and Nott sort of ran with it from there. I’d say I hate to be the one to spoil the surprise but I’d be lying.” He beamed so big and so proud and spread his arms with a ringmaster’s flair. “We all got you a book!”

“You all…” Now his grasp of Common and Zimnian and words in general had deserted him because Caleb’s mind was counting and recounting over and over again. His friends had decided to give him a book. His _six friends_ had all decided individually to get him a book. That made one, two, three, four, five…

“Six?” he asked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. “You got me _six_ books?”

“That we did. Yasha left hers’ with me before she had to go.”

“That is…” He felt dizzy again. “That is too many. And, and I won’t be able to sell them back when I am finished reading.”

“Of course you won’t, Caleb, they’re _yours’_. Honestly, I thought Nott was kidding when she said that would be the first thing on your mind.”

His face got warmer at the thought that Nott had both orchestrated this and predicted him so deftly. Six books! Probably not magical books, which meant six books that were just his to keep and read and reread. He didn’t think he’d _ever_ had six books that were his just for _fun_ before.

Curiosity overcame him. Caleb held up a hand and conjured up two glowing golden orbs of light that that hovered over him and Molly, giving him enough light to skim the book. It seemed to be a treatise on the uses of plants in specific relation to potion brewery – a topic so broad that Caleb thought this book could keep him occupied for _days_.

He’d read five pages before he remembered Molly was even there. He looked over to see that the tiefling had plucked a long reed from the shoreline and was trying to entice Frumpkin into playing. The cat stood up on his back legs to sniff at the proffered toy a touch suspiciously. 

Caleb watched his friend quietly for a moment, feeling fondness burning so warm in his chest, thinking back on all that had happened and finding that he could do so peacefully for now. He watched as Frumpkin executed an impressive leap that allowed him to grab the reed in his mouth, which he then tore from Molly’s hand and scampered away with it to Caleb’s other side. Molly sat back, grumbling, until he felt Caleb looking at him and smiled at the wizard.

Caleb smiled back. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said something else that had gone unsaid for much too long.

“You, ah…you did make things easier, you know.”

He opened his eyes to a most miraculous sight. It was the sight of Molly blushing and hastily looking away.

“I did?” Molly asked, and his voice was that same tight, panicked squeak Caleb had first heard within the depths of the Evening Nip. He rubbed a hand anxiously over one of his horns. “Oh, well…good. Glad to hear it.”

“I know you were wondering about that.”

“Oh, I was. Quite a lot. I just wasn’t sure if, you know, you’d ever remember me saying that.”

“It’s been long enough that I think I remember most everything from that time.”

Molly said something under his breath in Infernal that Caleb didn’t understand but which certainly carried the tonal connotations of _well, shit_.

“Listen, Molly…”

“Caleb, I…”

They stared at each other, then Caleb gestured for Molly to continue. “You first.”

In the glow of the dancing lights, he saw Molly gulp. “I’m glad I didn’t overstep any lines. I was worried about that. I didn’t want any of that to mean anything, I  _never_ wanted you to think I preferred you that way. I just…wanted to help however I could.”

“Of course.”

“But…I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want things to maybe get back to that point sometime. Where it actually helps when I stay close. When it’s actually all of you making that choice. You have a nice voice. I like hearing it. So if you ever _wanted_ that to mean anything…”

Caleb felt Molly’s hand cover his, squeezing once. Now it was his turn to swallow, his throat suddenly, painfully dry. He couldn’t keep meeting Molly’s gaze, then, and ducked his head.

“I don’t know if I do,” he mumbled.

“That’s okay,” Molly said, and he sounded like he meant it as he tried to pull his hand away. Caleb caught it before he could.

“I do not know if I _don’t_ , either.”

He held his breath. It felt like the world was holding it with him. Then Molly prodded him in the chest again in an apparent attempt to get Caleb to look at him. This Caleb did so, to see that the tiefling was smiling, slow and warm.

“Think about it,” he said. “With that keen mind of yours’. And maybe get back to me someday. Whatever you decide.”

It was very, very hard to think in the face of that smile, in light of the thought that maybe one day he _could_ reach the point of welcoming such easy touches and affectionate words from Mollymauk as easily as he once had while still _being_ himself in the process. It seemed like such an impossible idea.

But once upon a time, so had joining up with this group in the first place.

“I will,” Caleb said, and meant it. He squeezed Molly’s hand again. Then he let go and got to his feet, tucking his new book reverentially under one arm. Frumpkin mewled and came to twine around his legs, before Caleb picked him up and settled his familiar across his shoulders.

“We should get back,” he said. “Before Beauregard wakes someone else up.”

“She’s got to run out of shoes at _some_ point,” Molly grumbled. But he got up as well, and went to sling an arm around Caleb’s shoulders before they set off. Then, apparently remembering himself, he made to pull away. Caleb patted his friend’s hand, offering wordless permission, and they walked together arm in arm back towards camp.

As they went, Caleb dwelled on the possibility of peaceful sleep and the idea of a hopeful future – that one day, perhaps he, perhaps _they_ could be even more than this.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Of course the longest chapter is the chapter of Caleb and Molly trying to figure out their feelings. I can't imagine why I thought it would be any other way for me.
> 
> For my first Mighty Nein fic, I'm pretty proud of how this turned out, especially the fact that it wound up almost twice as long as I first thought it would but I was still able to keep going. I guess I just love these dorks that much, and I really hope I can write more fic with them down the line. This is the most writing that I've done in a long while, after all.


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